


That night, that year of now done darkness

by MagmaCombLatte



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Courtroom Drama, Eventual Relationships, F/F, Friendship/Love, Imperfect Relationship, No Storm in Arcadia Bay, PTSD, Respectful of Past Amberprice, Romance, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-08-08 21:39:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 44,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16437302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagmaCombLatte/pseuds/MagmaCombLatte
Summary: In the wake of Jefferson's arrest and Rachel's death, Chloe and Max attempt to move on with their lives and find peace in each other. But when old wounds fester and new ones refuse to heal, they learn that love is only as good as the foundation it's built on.Things get all the more complicated when Jefferson decides to put up a fight in court.(Or, Chloe and Max are raked over the coals and find out that hard-earned happiness is amazeballs.)





	1. Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Carrion Comfort" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

* * *

 

On the morning of Rachel’s funeral, Chloe has a minor meltdown. She manages to keep it together when she drops her toothbrush and when she stubs her toe, but after a full minute of her shirt buttons refusing to line up, she loses her mind for a little bit. She ends up asking Max, who’s all dressed and ready to leave, to please stay home and sit this one out. Chloe has no idea what came over her but somehow it feels like the right thing to do – that bringing Max to Rachel’s funeral is a line she shouldn’t cross.

And Max is good about it, like always. She makes sure Chloe’s absolutely positive about this and that she’ll be alright alone. Then she gives her a big hug and says she’ll just hang back, then – wait for Chloe to get home, text if she needs anything.

So Chloe drives herself to the cemetery and tries not to freak out again, but when the service starts, she wants to punch everyone and everything. That Tweety-looking bird screeching its stupid song needs shut up and show some respect. The sky with its bullshit soft yellows and its crisp morning sun needs to learn it’s not the time to be beautiful. That priest, his holy book, his literal homily about Rachel’s death when he _didn’t even know Rachel_ – like… What. The. Fuck. Who does he think he is, saying her name and talking about her life when he doesn’t know _jack_ about her?

Then there’s James Amber, weeping like a baby and crying out Rachel’s name like it’ll bring her back. Where was all this energy when Rachel went missing? Why didn’t he try this hard to protect her while she was still alive? Does he understand how much his lies destroyed her? That he’s the reason her life had to end on a note of pain?

But Chloe’s grief has always been a fickle bastard. One minute she’s amped and wants to burn the world to the ground, and the next she’s so numb she can barely feel her own skin. So she ends up saying nothing and doing nothing about all this hypocrisy. She just stands there, her eyes stinging and red, but dry. She feels like if Max came and snapped a shot of her in this exact moment, her eyes would look empty and dead. Which would be appropriate. Eyes are the window to the soul and all that crap, right?

She keeps herself upright and staring ahead at Rachel’s coffin or casket or whatever that lifeless box is as the priest drones on and everyone around her sniffles like the world’s saddest kazoo band. She waits until the talking stops and some dude in a dirty tee presses a button and this ugly whirring fills the space and Rachel starts to disappear into the ground, again. She never looks away and she’s careful not to blink, which is probably pretty stupid because it’s not like she can see Rachel in that box anyway. And she doesn’t even flinch at each thump of earth they throw on Rachel until the ground is flat and there’ll never be less than six feet of distance between them ever again. She just...stands and stares.

When it’s over and all of Rachel’s fly-by friends begin to scatter, Chloe stays rooted. Either Joyce or David puts a heavy hand on her shoulder and says something, and she probably nods in response but she’s not sure, and then they’re gone, too. After god knows how long, she thinks she’s finally outstayed even the Ambers, and it’s just her and Rachel again. She starts to glance around to confirm this but fuck it, she doesn’t care anymore. Nothing inside her knows what to do, so she just stands and stares, stands and stares, until her eyes find something to rest on.

_Rachel Dawn Amber_

_Beloved Daughter_

_Gone too soon but always in our hearts_

_July 1994 – April 2013_

“Bummer. I was hoping my headstone would at least have exact dates on it.”

 _That voice._ Chloe shuts her eyes and breathes through the sting. She knows this isn’t real just like all those talks with her dad were never real, but that voice, _her_ voice, even if she’s only hearing it in her head… It’s still exactly the same, still makes her think of warm nights under street lamps, of secrets kept in train cars, and she wonders if she might even catch the scent of jasmine.

“Think they skipped it because they didn’t know when I died?"

“Probably.” Chloe tries her best to keep herself level. “Cops CSI’d your body for months and they still couldn’t figure that shit out.”

“Jesus, my poor body.”

She opens her eyes but takes care to keep them trained straight ahead. “But I guess I can see how _Betwixt th’ Eve and th’ Morn o’ 22 and 23 April_ woulda added to the Rachel Amber aesthetic.”

“Glad to see you’re still a smartass even in mourning.”

“Hey. Everybody copes in bullshit ways.”

Rachel chuckles at that. “Too bad, though. I wanted my birthday on there at least. Show people I was a Leo. Rarr.”

“Don’t think anyone who matters will ever forget that about you.”

“Truth,” Rachel says. “You know, you always had a knack for cutting to the heart of things, Price.”

“Still do, dude; I’m not past tense yet.” She chances a look at Rachel for the first time in almost a year, at how the fall of her hair shapes a frame around her cheeks or how the corners of her lips seem to tease at a smile, and maybe that wasn’t such a great idea. She swallows against the ache in her throat. “But I kinda wish I was right now.”

“Oh, look. Sad Chloe’s being sad again,” Rachel says with equal parts softness and barb. “Stop it. You and me, we went through too much together for you to turn into such a wimp.”

“Shut up. I’m hella hardcore.” Chloe tries for a smile and goes to elbow Rachel but hits only air, and she feels her smile fall like a broken mask.

“Womp. Better luck next time,” Rachel says, and an old doubt starts to weigh on Chloe’s mind. How many ‘next times’ would there even have been?

“Rach, listen. I’ve gotta ask you something.”

“Whoa.” Rachel makes like she’s surprised. “Are you about to get all serious on me here? At my own funeral?”

“Fuck, just… That person you met who changed your life. Was it Frank?”

“What do you think?”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why’d you have to lie to me, like everyone else in my life?”

Rachel says nothing. She just stares at Chloe, a smirk curving her lips and driving Chloe ten shades of nuts.

“Not gonna tell me, asshole?”

“No, asshole.”

“Fuck you.”

That draws a laugh from Rachel. “There’s my girl. C’mon, gimme some more of that fire. More pissy Chloe, less pussy Chloe.”

Chloe lets out a massive breath. It’s a little moist and her chest feels like there’s stones in it. “Don’t know if I have it in me right now.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“Sorry to let you down. But maybe I can make it up to you.” She reaches into her blazer pocket and pulls out a flask. “Shot of Jäger?”

Rachel’s eyes crinkle. “You certainly know the way to a girl’s heart.”

“Ha, like hell I do.” She unscrews the cap and pours the liquor onto Rachel’s headstone, counting out a full Mississippi, then puts it to her own lips for a full supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Rachel cocks an eyebrow. “What? It’s my booze.”

“Fine. Makes my headstone all sticky anyway.” Chloe splashes a little more onto the stone at that. “Hey!”

“Sorry. Still pissed at you.”

Rachel rolls her eyes. “Yeah okay, Price. And what about Max?”

“What about Max?”

“I can’t believe you aren’t more pissed at _her_. If you care to recall, I was the one who had to piece you back together after she broke you.”

“God, can you not make me sound so pathetic, please?” She takes another swig from the flask before shoving it back in her pocket. “Look, I know she fucked up in Seattle. Big time. But she more than proved herself to me that week, Rach. She went through hell for me, and now she’s all sorts of messed up because of me.”

“Chloe Price. Are you growing mushy in your dotage?”

“Damn, I’m more surprised my subconscious knows such a big-ass word!”

“Maybe your subconscious knows more than you do.”

Chloe snorts. “Dude, that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Yeah it does, but that’s not the point.” Rachel steps in front of Chloe, meets her square-on, and pins her with a glare. “Does Max know how much she fucked you up?”

“Jesus, Rachel, give it a rest! She’s my best friend.”

“Pfft. Some best friend.”

“Fuck off, she is! Plus…” Chloe rubs a hand on the back of her neck. “She’s kind of the only person I have left.”

Rachel gives her this hard look for a long moment before heaving a deep sigh. “Yeah, I know. I’m aware.” She reaches up and ghosts her fingers over Chloe’s cheek, and Chloe’s eyes flutter shut. “I just don’t wanna see you hurt again, Chlo.”

A bitter laugh escapes Chloe’s throat, and that’s when the grief decides to suckerpunch her. Her legs fold in on themselves and the next thing she knows, her knees are pressing imprints on Rachel’s grave and her face scrapes so close to the headstone the Jäger burns her eyes. Apologies drip from her lips – she’s sorry she didn’t find her in time, sorry she couldn’t protect her, sorry she was such a bad influence on her, sorry she’s getting snot on her grave, sorry she’s being such a baby.

Rachel gives Chloe time to let it all out, and when she’s done with the meltdown, she gives her room to pull herself together. She doesn’t even comment when Chloe wipes her nose on her sleeve – a habit Rachel tried for three years to break her of. Rachel’s always, _always_ known exactly what she needs and how to give it to her. Chloe wishes it’d gone both ways.

When Chloe’s finally leveled out, Rachel lowers herself down next to her. They sit in silence together, breathing in the weight of it all, until Chloe works up the balls to ask her for one more kiss.

“Even with Frank watching?”

She glances over Rachel’s shoulder and spots a scraggly figure in the far corner of the cemetery. “Shit. Still can’t believe he came.”

“Why not?”

“Idiot’s gonna get himself caught.”

“Yeah, well, that’s his problem. You still want that kiss?”

“Always.”

Rachel leans in and Chloe tries to memorize her face for as long as possible before closing her eyes. She parts her lips because Rachel likes to kiss tongue-first – some bullshit dominance thing probably – but the tongue doesn’t come. Nothing comes. She waits, and waits, and nothing comes. When she opens her eyes, Rachel is gone.

The only person she sees anymore is Frank, peering at her like she’s some sort of freakshow and he’s not.

When her phone goes off, she swipes away Max’s texts for now and answers the call with a string of curses.

 

* * *

 

Max sits at the Price kitchen table, too busy staring at her hand to notice Chloe come home. So when Chloe throws her keys on the table, Max jumps like a feral cat.

“Earth to Max. I said I’m back – not going to the wake.” Chloe shrugs off her blazer and throws it somewhere in the living room. “Yo, you weren’t messing with time again, were you?”

Max brings herself to meet Chloe’s eyes and tries to keep her voice from shaking. How does she even break this kind of news to Chloe on a day like today when she’s barely admitted it to herself? “I… can’t.”

Chloe frowns at her, concern etched across her brows. “Can’t what?”

Max chews on her lip for something to do until it gets a bit too raw, and then she makes herself spit out the words because the silence is making it worse. Rip off the bandaid, right? “They’re gone, Chloe. My powers are gone.”

Chloe pulls a face like there’s a bad smell. “Shit, dude. Like, they just up and went _poof_ on you?”

“I’m not exactly sure what happened. I went to make myself some tea earlier...” Max gets up, opens the lid of the garbage can, and points to a broken mug. “And I dropped this-”

“Butterfingers.”

“Then I tried to rewind and fix it, but… nothing!”

“Huh.” Chloe walks to the kitchen and starts to reach for a water glass but changes course to Joyce’s wine instead. She puts the bottle straight to her lips. “Leaves no evidence this way,” she answers even though Max didn't ask.

“You don’t sound upset about this.” She figured the news that she isn’t supercharged anymore would’ve sent Chloe into a fit – maybe even make her take all her anger out on Max again. And while that was an unpleasant idea, it’s almost more upsetting to see her this subdued.

Chloe lowers the bottle and swipes her arm across her mouth. “Meh. Sucks that we don’t have a get-outta-jail-free card anymore, but it was never gonna last, right?”

“I… guess.”

“So no point delaying the inevitable,” Chloe says, and if Max didn’t know that Chloe’s calmness is only a facade, she could actually let herself follow that logic. “Plus, it’s kind of a funny picture: you standing in my kitchen with your hand in the air like you’re trying to blow a Dragon Ball.”

“That’s not how Dragon Ball w-... Never mind.”

Chloe throws a small smirk her way. “Nerd.”

Max senses the challenge. And as much as she thinks they should talk about the actual issues, if Chloe needs a little distraction before she can open up, Max supposes she can play along. “Oh yeah, Miss Closet Anime Geek?” She steps up to Chloe. “So you won’t mind if I say Ikkaku has the best bankai?”

No reaction. Okay.

“Or Mecha Naruto was the best episode?”

Still nothing. Impressive.

“Or that Chopper is weak and annoying and shouldn’t be part of the crew?”

She’s pretty proud when this makes Chloe cough up some wine. Game, set, and match. “Wow, Max. Low blow.”

“Well, if you’d just come out of the closet.” And then her face burns a hole through her head. “I mean for anime! Not-, n-”

“Easy there. Don’t trip and hurt yourself on that tongue.”

“The,” Max says before she manages to stop knowing words. It’s hard to hear through the whooshing in her ears but she thinks Chloe huffs a laugh.

“Dude, relax. Pretty sure the whole town knows which way I swing by now.”

Oh.

That tidbit makes Max’s heart do a little twirl, and she wishes she could be as fearless as Chloe with that kind of stuff; maybe then they’d be another step closer to…

But still, this is _so_ not the time to be having this conversation, so Max lifts her hand to rewind.

Her brain doesn’t catch up until it’s too late.

She sees Chloe blinking at her useless gesture and she kind of wishes there was a nice hole she could crawl into. Now that her powers are gone, she wonders if science can come up with another way to alter the fact that Max Caulfield has no game.

But then she notices that Chloe is letting her live this one down – she only shakes her head once before busying herself with the wine again – and that’s enough to weigh Max back to her sense. Chloe must really be hurting if she’s passing up an opportunity like this.

“Hey… Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fucking super, thanks.” She tries not to wince at Chloe’s tone, flat and colorless and far away.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Chloe takes a long pull of wine, then brings the bottle down with a sigh. “There’s nothing to talk about, Max.”

A few beats pass between them before Max realizes that Chloe’s done speaking, that she’s not going to open up. And it really shouldn’t hurt this much to be shut out of Chloe’s pain, because pain is a private thing and Chloe is an even more private person, but ouch. She thought she was the exception to that rule.

Maybe just not where Rachel is involved.

She pushes down the urge to pry, because no matter how badly she wants to know, she shouldn’t be making this about herself. “Well, I’m here for you if you need anything, okay?”

Chloe turns to her and a small sign of life warms her eyes for the first time all day. “I know you are, Max.” She cups her hand on Max’s and Max can’t help but relish the tingle on her skin.

“I mean it. Anything at all, just ask.” She closes her fingers around Chloe’s and traces her thumb along the lines of Chloe’s knuckles, trying to tell her things that her mouth is too scared to say.

“Why’d you think your powers are gone, though?” Chloe asks after a moment, pulling her hand away and walking to the faucet while Max tries not to miss her warmth. “Like, why today?”

Chloe fills the bottle with some water before stuffing the cork back in and returning it to the counter, and Max braces herself for Chloe’s reaction to her theory. “I think…” The words get stuck in her throat, so she takes a breath and tries again. “I think that Rachel gave me this power to find her. And now that she’s finally at peace…”

Chloe’s whole body hardens and Max shuts up immediately. “Can we not talk about that right now?”

It stings just as much the second time.

“Yeah, of course.” She has to remind herself not to try another rewind. “Sorry,” she says, then realizes she’s run out of things to say and feels awkward around Chloe for the first time in months. How much of her life since coming back was actually built on her powers? Now that those powers are gone and she can’t undo her mistakes anymore, would their friendship still look the same? Would _she?_

“Damn it, I need some air,” Chloe declares, and Max is glad because she can use a change of scenery, too. Chloe goes back to the living room to hunt down her blazer. “Let’s go take advantage of this non-crappy Arcadia weather. Whaddaya say?”

“I say are you good to drive?”

“Tell you a secret: that wine is half water.” She finds the blazer behind the couch and tosses it over her shoulder. “Which is why we need to get outta here, like, ten minutes ago. I’m too sober to be cooped up in this hellhole.”

“Okay, just let me get my-”

“Whatever, just hurry. We need to bust me outta this place before I freak.”

Max takes one look at Chloe and knows that she means it. She runs to grab her hoodie from upstairs and manages to make it back down before Chloe’s fuse is up. “Ready to roll,” she says, and Chloe’s already halfway out the door. “Where to, Cap’n?”

 

* * *

 

As much as Arcadia Bay is a shithole town, even Chloe can’t deny there are beautiful sides to it. From where they stand on the dock, the bay looks like it opens up to infinite possibilities and infinite memories, reminding her that her pain is only a tiny part of the world’s motions. The water at high tide laps at the planks under her feet, and the breeze cradles her skin with the salted air of her childhood. It’s hard not to relax here, to find a little balance in a place like this.

Most of the boats are mossy from disuse and Max says there’s a sad kind of beauty to it. She names a foreign-sounding art word that Chloe doesn’t quite catch but makes her suddenly want sushi. When she voices this, Max whips her head round so quick she might’ve given herself whiplash.

“There’s sushi in Arcadia Bay?” She rubs her neck.

“Pfft, please.” Chloe ashes her joint and sits the paper against her lips. “We’re lucky we even have the one Italian place.”

Max tilts her head. “By which you mean Pizza Hut.”

Chloe takes a long toke. “What,” she says through the swirl of smoke in her mouth, “pizza’s not Italian now?”

Max is clearly holding back her I’m-such-a-worldly-hipster eye roll as her mind whirrs for a change in topic. Chloe doesn’t love that Max has been handling her with kid gloves all day, but she’s too mellowed out right now to argue. She blows the smoke downwind, away from Max.

“So, where did you have sushi?”

“Portland” is all she says and wants to say, so she draws another hit to occupy her mouth.

“With Rachel?” Max’s tone is weird and Chloe doesn’t feel like reading into it right now. She does a quick inhale then lets the smoke flow out.

“Yeah, hey, all this talk about food is making me hungry.” She puts her hand on Max’s wrist to turn her around but she feels her seize up. Shit, right. Not the wrists. “Oh, fuck. I’m so sorry, dude-”

“It’s cool,” Max says too quickly but Chloe doesn’t press. This isn’t the kind of issue that should be pressed, so she drops it and lets Max ask her, “What do you want to eat?”

They kick around a few ideas but like always, they settle on the Two Whales. Helps that Chloe’s parked in the diner lot already. When her joint is down to a roach, she tosses it and takes one last look at the bay, at its steady peace, and she wonders if there’s a way to bottle this feeling and take it with her.

As they start their walk back into town, Max spots something that they missed earlier: a billboard advertising an upcoming Prescott development. _Pan Towers: Luxury Waterfront Real Estate in the Crown of Oregon. YOUR FUTURE STARTS HERE!_

Chloe snorts extra loud at that one and Max cracks a chuckle, too.

“Wowser.”

“Yeah. _Big_ yikes.”

“For how much cash the Prescotts must be dropping on these monstrosities, you’d think they’d hire a better copywriter.”

“ _'_ _Pan Towers: Luxury Backwater Real Estate in the Ass of Oregon. THERE’S, LIKE, A SCHOOL HERE!’_ ”

“ _'Pan Towers: Luxury Backstabbers’ Real Estate in the Pit of Oregon. GENTRIFICATION STARTS HERE!’_ ”

“Seriously, though.” She loops her arm with Max’s and steers her across the blacktop as they cut through Arcadia Gas. “Can’t believe the Prescotts are already back to their scheming ways. Didn’t take them long to stop giving a shit.”

“No rest for the wicked.”

“None at all.” She holds Max back to let Officer Berry pull up to the pump in front of them before giving him a nod and continuing. “And what’s up with all this luxury condos crap anyway? First Pan Estates and now this. Who does Sean Prescott think he is – the Mayor of Vancouver or something?”

“Gregor Robertson?”

Chloe blinks at her. “Okay, weirdo. How the hell do you just know that?”

“Back in Seattle,” Max begins and Chloe already knows she’s going to hate this story, can already feel her zen slipping away, “my folks took me to this fancypants restaurant for my sixteenth birthday. One of my friends-”

Fuck, why does that hurt so bad?

“-was a big cyclist, and it turns out Mayor Robertson’s a mini-celebrity with the cycling crowd. Anyways, she spotted him leaving the restaurant, chased him down for an _actual autograph_ but all she had on her was my birthday card, so she got the Mayor of Vancouver to sign it. I got pretty familiar with his name after that.” She flashes a small smile. “But I gave it back to her eventually.”

Chloe’s not sure what Max is expecting from her with this story. How can she not know that just the _word_ Seattle cuts her like a knife? Back when they first met back up and she asked her if Seattle sucked hard, how could Max have answered with anything except ‘Yes, Seattle sucked hard and I missed you the whole time’? Or is this Chloe being selfish again, because Max is her own person and she’s allowed to have a fucking life?

They reach the Two Whales and she notices that Max is staring at her a little strange. She ignores the look and the “Are you okay?” and shoulders the door open. She starts stomping over to her usual spot but Rachel’s sitting at the next booth over, so she heads there instead. It makes Max almost trip over her own feet trying to keep up, but Chloe doesn’t slow down. She clambers into the booth next to Rachel, torn between ripping into Max and ripping into herself.

“Her, of course.” Rachel points her finger at Max as she sits down across from them. “You need to rip into _her_.”

Chloe can see how bad her legs are shaking – the salt and pepper caddies are practically dancing on the table and Max is watching her with these big worried eyes – and she’s so pissed, _so fucking pissed_ that Max had go and to ruin her zen. That Max had to go to Seattle and forget her and ruin her life.

“So tell her that. She needs to hear it.”

She puts her hands on her knees to settle herself but that does a whole lot of nothing.

“Bitch needs to know how much she fucked you up when she dropped you in your hour of need.”

The more sense Rachel makes, the worse her shaking gets.

“You were _fourteen_ , Price!”

Fuck it, Rachel’s right. It’s time to say it, to finally tell Max that all is not forgiven – because how _can_ it be? But when she opens her mouth, only this weird choking noise comes out.

“Chloe! Chloe, are you okay?” And now Max’s voice is quivering with that note, that layer of desperate love and fear that Chloe heard too many times back in October.

Max suffered _so much_ then. She’s still suffering so much now.

“And how long did she make _you_ suffer for?”

“Chloe, talk to me!”

Max has paid her dues, hasn’t she? She _came_ _back,_ didn’t she?

“She abandoned you, didn’t she?”

“Chloe, please, what’s wrong?”

So much is wrong, _everything_ is wrong, but it’s not Max’s fault. How can anything be Max’s fault when Max is the only good thing left in her life?

“And what happens if she leaves your life again?”

“Is it me?” Max’s voice rises, like there’s fear in it. “Did- Did I do something?”

She left and came back. That’s what she did. She left and destroyed everything then came back and fixed everything.

Shouldn’t that be good enough?

Max springs out of her seat and pushes herself in next to Chloe. When she grabs Chloe’s hands with her own, Chloe can feel Max’s fingers trembling, and suddenly she feels like an asshole, like Rachel’s an asshole, like Max doesn’t deserve this. “Chloe…”

“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Chloe drops Max’s hands and digs the heels of her palms into her forehead, and she holds the pressure there until she’s sure Rachel is gone. “I, shit. I thought I was more chilled out than this.” She hears Max start to say something and stop herself, like she's scared to even _talk_ to Chloe now. Goddammit, Price. “Look, just… give me a minute, okay?”

“Okay.” The crack in Max’s voice puts a cut in Chloe’s heart. “…Do you want me to leave you alone?”

The sigh she lets out is so long it burns her chest, but it buys her some time to work out her answer. “No,” she says. “Never.”

 

* * *

 

They end up taking their food to go, which is fine by Max because it means she finds herself in one of her favorite places: sitting in the bed of Chloe’s truck snuggled up to her best friend. It doesn’t even matter that they’re parked right in the Price driveway with Joyce and David in the house; the way Chloe reacted back in town – Max knows the pain she triggered is a deep one, and right now she just wants to be next to Chloe, to know that she’s there and she’s whole.

Chloe doesn’t bring up the incident, and Max decides to give it as wide a berth as she needs. They just gaze at the stars and make up vulgar stories about fake constellations between bites of breakfast-for-dinner until things begin to resemble normal again. Chloe even pulls her in by the shoulder after a while, and she follows suit by slinging an arm across Chloe’s waist. The silence that follows is soft and Max thinks she can feel Chloe’s heart kick up like her own.

When Chloe starts to drift off on her, Max ignores the fact that Sunday’s a school night and pulls her into the house, smiles a quick goodnight at Joyce and David, and crawls right in bed with her. It takes all of seven seconds before Chloe’s snoring loudly against her, and she lies awake under Chloe’s arm as her thoughts catch up to her.

Thoughts like the fact that she’s normal again, just-Max again, screws-everything-up Max again. She won’t be able to control the situation anymore. Every consequence will be final now – no more second chances. She feels a knot growing in her gut as her reality starts to take shape.

Forget everything else. Forget school, friends, all that stuff for a second. Max might say something to push Chloe away like she almost did today, and she’d have nothing to undo that damage with. She knows that Chloe will always be Chloe, which means she’ll always find dumb reasons to get mad at Max, but today wasn’t that. Today, Max fucked up.

She debates telling Chloe the truth about Seattle but she’s not sure she’s ready to dredge up that whole mess yet.

Maybe when she’s well again.

Maybe that’ll happen soon.

Maybe when Mark Jefferson is finally in prison.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to leave whatever you think is appropriate - and know that reviews are *very* appreciated =)
> 
> MASSIVE thanks to rob_lentz and u/nadvolk for helping me with this thing.
> 
> (Also, 10 points to whoever can guess Max's foreign-sounding art word!)


	2. Connections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somebody requested that I do a recap of previous chapters, and I think that's a great idea; this fic can get confusing. So here it is. Last Time On "That Night, That Year of Now Done Darkness":
> 
> * Chloe went to Rachel's funeral alone after asking Max to stay behind. While there, she sees Rachel's "apparition" for the first time.
> 
> * Rachel reminds Chloe about all the hurt Max put her through during her Seattle years.
> 
> * Max loses her powers and is afraid of what she might do to mess up her friendship (and desired more-than-friendship) with Chloe.
> 
> * The Prescotts are building a new development mere months after Nathan "went missing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNING:** This chapters contains spoilers to the short story "A Small Good Thing" by Raymond Carver. If you haven't read it yet but you plan to, you may wanna hold off on this chapter! (Or go read it now because it's such a brilliant story!)
> 
> Otherwise, hope you enjoy =)

* * *

 

Night. Blackwell. Max’s bed. Hella squished.

AKA Chloe’s new normal.

She squirms a little, trying to wriggle her way into a few more inches of mattress, but tiny Max Caulfield is a goddamn boulder in her sleep. “Yo. Max. You awake?”

“No,” the back of Max’s head says.

“Then you won’t mind if I shove you over?”

“Yes.”

Chloe angles her hip against Max’s something-or-other and gives a hard push.

“Hey! I said I minded!”

“No, you gave a vague answer.”

Max rolls over and pouts in this _Stop it, I’m cereal_ sort of way, and her nose is scrunched so small that Chloe has to resist the urge to either kiss it or boop it. “You know you’re the only person who can hear ‘yes’ as a vague word, right?” Max lifts up her edge of the comforter. “Besides, you’re already hogging all the blanket.”

That sounds an awful lot like a challenge to Chloe. In the weeks since Rachel’s funeral, she hasn’t always been in the mood to goof around with Max; she may not feel like death-incarnate anymore but shit still just feels out of whack.

But then there are times like this, when Max gives her the perfect opening and Chloe’s idea is so good it’d be a travesty to pass up. “If it’s blanket you want,” Chloe says as she springboards over Max and out of bed, “then it’s blanket you’ll get.”

Before Max can react, Chloe flips her on top of the comforter.

“Chloe, wha-” Chloe cuts her off as she yanks the comforter over her. “What the h-!”

She flashes a grin. “Just granting your wish, Your Nerdjesty!” Max yelps some choice words as Chloe snickers and rolls her on the bedding until she’s been made into a nice big Max burrito. A Maxurrito. “There!” She claps the dust of victory off her hands. “Blanket’s all yours. And I have a new nickname for you.”

“Oh my god, you literal child!” Max is clearly trying to huff but she’s laughing so hard she might start hiccupping instead. She can play it straight-laced all she wants but Chloe knows she’s a sucker for a good practical joke. Just another item on the list of Max Things Only Chloe Knows About – probably. Unless she’s got another best friend back in Seattle… “Chloe, you asshole!” Max tries to shout but the laugh-snort spoils the effect, and Chloe homes in on her target.

“An asshole, you say?” She flops herself on top of the Maxurrito and starts sloppy-licking a finger.

“Oh, no.” Max’s voice turns low.

She wets it until it’s goopy and positions it next to Max’s ear. “Would an asshole do this?”

“Nuh uh, don’t do it, Chloe. I mean it.” Max starts squirming under her, trying to wobble her off, but she’s wrapped so tight in the blanket that she only manages to weak wiggle. “Chloe, _no_.” Chloe brings her finger closer. “No no nonononono don’t you _dare,_ Chloe! _Chloe!_ ” Her words give way to squeaks as Chloe charges full steam ahead and Max fails to worm away from the finger in her ear.

“Ah ha! I’ve got you now, ya bed bandit! That’ll teach you to steal all the mattress!” Chloe continues her onslaught as Max fights between grossed-out squeals and deep belly-laughs, and Max’s face just looks so damn _precious_ right now that Chloe decides she needs to capture this moment in time – Max Caulfield-style. So she leaps across the room with giggles still bubbling behind her, grabs her dad’s old camera, and snaps a shot. The room flashes as she shouts, “Say ‘Maxurrito’!”

But Max doesn’t say it. She doesn’t say anything. As Chloe adjusts to the darkness again, she lowers the camera to find Max’s eyes, and she sees that they’re blank. “Max?”

“I…” Max’s voice catches and her gaze sharpens, like it’s fixed on a terror that only she can see.

Fuck.

Chloe dumps the camera and bolts over to Max. She rips away the comforter and helps Max into a sit, and Max stares at nothing for a second before bringing her face into her knees.

Oh, _fuck._

“Max, you okay?” Max’s breathing pitches faster and higher until she’s gasping, and Chloe touches a hand to her spine. When she doesn’t shrink away, Chloe rubs firm circles on it. “Max, breathe. Long and deep, long and deep. There you go. Long, deep breaths. Keep going.” She coaches Max through the worst of it like when she wakes up from one of her nightmares, except this time Chloe’s the cause of it, Chloe’s the nightmare. “It’s okay, it’s me, it’s Chloe,” she says like it’s supposed to be a good thing. “You’re okay, Max. _We_ ’re okay. We’re at Blackwell, in your bed. It’s just us, and we’re both okay.” She does this until the sharp gasps start to even out. “You’re doing great, dude. Keep breathing. You got this.”

They keep going and Max keeps listening to Chloe until she finally finds her breath. Then she just sits and waits for the shivering to stop. After a while, she manages a “Shit.” Her voice is thick and shaky but at least she starts coming back to her senses. “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

Or maybe not.

“Uh, what the hell are you talking about?”

Max lifts her face and in the moonlight, her skin looks like ice. But then her eyes flicker to her wrists, and Chloe can almost hear Max’s blood sizzle. “My… fucking… _issues_ ,” she says with more hate than a girl like her should ever have to know. “They keep getting in the way of _everything_. I’m so sorry I let them fuck up our night.”

Chloe slides her arm around Max’s shoulder and brings her in, and she tries not to break her in the process. “Are you kidding me, hippie?” She puts her free hand on Max’s knee and squeezes. “I’m the asshole. You were right. I’m _such_ an asshole – I should’ve known better.”

They sit together for a bit and when Chloe chances a glance over, she see that Max’s eyes are on the camera.

“Was that the first time that camera’s been used since-”

“Mhm.”

“Dude, I’m so fucking sorry.”

Against all odds, Max lets out something that sounds like a chuckle. “So we’re both sorry?”

“ _I_ am. _You_ have no reason to be, dummy.”

The room goes quiet for a moment, so Chloe decides to fill it with more self-reflection.

“I’m an asshole _and_ a dickhole.”

Max chuckles again, more sure this time. “That’s a rare pair.”

“Yeah, well, if the hole fits.”

“Chloe,” Max says in a tone that’s both harsh and nice, “you’re not a hole. You’re a rockstar – for staying with me every night, even in my super lame dorm room. Thank you.”

“Hey, no problem. After everything you’ve done, you’ve earned yourself a lifetime subscription to Chloe-On-Demand.”

“Score.” Max turns her head to the display on her hi-fi. “But do you come with an auto-mute feature that kicks in at, say, 1:37 on a school night?”

“Smartass,” Chloe says, but Max really does deserve some peace. She unwraps herself from Max and lies back down. Max follows suit, pulling the comforter over them both.

The goodnights they say sound normal enough and the room grows silent, but Chloe can tell Max is wide awake. She always has trouble calming down after a trigger, and… Chloe still can’t believe she was the trigger tonight.

Max shivers against the air even though it’s not cold and Chloe drapes an arm across her. She doesn’t need to move much to be flush against Max’s backside, and Max’s body is so soft and her skin smells like soap and, fuck, Chloe is literally the shittiest person in the world for noticing these things right now.

She starts itching for a smoke or some hard liquor. Something to burn away these goddamn _feelings_.

 

* * *

 

If zombies attacked Blackwell right now, Max would survive; the way her body feels after last night, she could definitely pass for one of them.

She makes it to English a heartbeat before Mrs. Hoida gets to her name on the roll sheet. She’s the only teacher at Blackwell who still takes attendance, but if the poor thing needs the routine to keep herself afloat, Max will not judge. She raises her hand and says “here,” then slides into the last empty seat, next to Warren.

Warren tries to strike up a conversation with her as Mrs. Hoida moves through the other names, but Max isn’t in the mood to loud-whisper about Cannibal Holocaust. She scribbles the word ‘later’ on a looseleaf and pushes it towards him. She doesn’t need to look to know that his face fell.

That’s the second time in as many days that’s she’s been a killjoy to someone she cares about. Seriously, _fuck_ Mark Jefferson and his Dark Room for doing this to her. Or is it fuck Max Caulfield and her own feeble mind?

Mrs. Hoida gets a lazy “here” out of Justin Williams and declares the class in session. She asks for a volunteer to recap their reading homework, and Max feels terrible for her when nobody raises their hand. Just apparently not terrible enough to raise her own hand.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Victoria pans a glare over the class before shaking her head. “You’re all a bunch of losers, you know that?” She sighs and leans back in her chair. “Fucking fine. I’ll do it.” She ignores Mrs. Hoida’s objection to her language. “ _A Small Good Thing_ by Raymond Carver follows the parents of eight-year-old Scotty who gets hit by a car on his birthday. They spend the next few days at the hospital where Scotty lays comatose and they meet people there, including the family of some kid who was shot and ends up dying in surgery. But they forget about a birthday cake they ordered from this crotchety old baker earlier, and he thinks they’re just rich assholes who wasted his time, so he makes crank calls to harass them. When Scotty dies at the end of the story, the mother decides to take her pain out on the baker, so she drags her husband to the bakery for a smackdown. But then the baker chills them out with some fresh bread – which, Mrs. Hoida, is the dumbest resolution I’ve ever had the displeasure of reading, so thanks for putting me through that.”

Max watches as Mrs. Hoida sputters to defend the story. Pre-breakdown, she was an outstanding teacher and would’ve had some witty remark to address or at least sidestep Victoria’s cynicism. But this Mrs. Hoida is a shadow of her former self. Poor woman probably wasn’t ready to come back to work yet.

“I think,” Alyssa says, and Max feels a swell of appreciation for her, “that the resolution makes perfect sense. The baker finds out the truth about Scotty, so he makes an effort to connect with them. That connection is the reason they ‘chill out’ – not the bread.”

Mrs. Hoida tries to say something but Victoria cuts her off. “What a load of crap. The only people the mother ‘connects with’ in the entire story is the other dead kid’s family. You wanna know why? Because no matter how fucking ‘empathetic’ you think you are, nobody knows anybody unless they’ve been through what you’ve been through. In fact, anybody who pities anyone else is only looking down on them, including that idiot baker, and pity is a _shitty, selfish_ emotion that does nothing except let people pat themselves on the back for being _oh-so-compassionate_. Which, again, is just a steaming load of _crap!_ ”

Taylor puts a hand on Victoria’s shoulder, but Victoria throws it off like it’s a spider.

“Don’t fucking _touch_ me, Taylor! _Jesus!_ ”

Max is used to Victoria being Queen-Bitch-on-steroids ever since the cops told her what happened to her in the Dark Room, but even for her, this is aggressive.

Taylor looks like she’s been slapped and the whole class stares at Victoria, but nobody moves or says anything. It’s like everyone’s scared they’ll break her if they so much as make a peep, but isn’t that the exact type of pity she was just railing against? Max wants to challenge Victoria and tell her that she’s wrong, that she’s not alone in this, but she’s too chickenshit to say a word. ‘Becoming a force of nature’, her ass. Chloe was so wrong about her; she’s still just as gutless as she was the day she left for Seattle – only she’s even more broken now.

“I’m going to the fucking bathroom.” Victoria gets up and strides to the door. “Don’t try to stop me,” she says, even though nobody does. Poor Mrs. Hoida watches on from behind her desk, looking like she’s shrunk a few inches and is fighting to not crawl under the desk and cry.

If Max could still rewind, she thinks she would go back and stand up to Victoria, talk sense into Victoria. She would have the courage to. But what does it say about her that along with her powers, she also lost her voice?

Taylor clears her throat, and everyone turns their eyes to her. “Guys, don’t take it personally,” she says, probably more to herself than anyone. “She just got word this morning, it’ll be all over the news soon, but Jefferson's hearing’s been set for April.”

“Shit,” someone says. “Where?”

“Portland. And ifit goes to trial, Vic…” Taylor tucks her hair behind her ear. “They might make her and Kate testify.”

Nausea hits Max hard. She’s been waiting for this news for months – for a chance to hear the words “life sentence” come out of a judge’s mouth so she can see the final nail hammered on that bastard’s coffin. But at the same time, a hearing, a court case – that just makes everything real. Max was drugged, kidnapped, bound, dehumanized, and almost murdered, and this news means that it wasn’t a dream she can wake up from, that it really, _really_ happened to her.

Except not in this timeline. He will never pay for what he did to her because in this timeline, he did nothing.

She excuses herself for the bathroom, too.

 

* * *

 

The girls’ bathroom is so clouded with smoke that for a second, Max expects Chloe to jump out and wrap her in a musky hug. But this cigarette smoke doesn’t choke her lungs or make her eyes water. It smells… finer, if that’s a word to describe smells.

“Get out of here, Max.” Victoria sits against a sink and sucks on her cigarette like it’s water and she’s in a desert. Her voice isn’t as sharp as it was in class; it’s all frayed around the edges, although Max can still hear something distinctly Victoria Chase in it. “I know that outburst back there was stupid, but I don’t want your pity.”

Max tries not to remember the last time they had a heart-to-heart, the binds on both their wrists, the tremor in both their voices. How in a timeline Victoria has no memory of, Max had a power that gave her the strength to believe they would live while Victoria begged for forgiveness like she was meeting her maker. In the end they were both right, but Max knows neither of them are the same people they were back in that room. She rakes in a deep breath of the smokey air. “Victoria…”

“What? ‘Victoria’, what?” The cigarette burns down to its filter, and Victoria replaces it with a new one in a motion so fluid it would impress even Chloe. “What do you want to say to me, huh? ‘Victoria, it’s okay’? ‘Victoria, you’re not alone’? ‘ _Victoria, I understand what you’re going through_ ’?”

Yes, yes, and yes, because that’s what Max needs Victoria to say to her, too. She doesn’t want to go through this on her own any more than Victoria does, but is a shared experience actually shared if it only happened to one person in their own mind? She blinks through the sting in her eyes and wraps her arms around herself, pretending it’s Chloe.

“Jesus, why the fuck are _you_ crying?”

Max has so many answers but her throat is too tight and it strangles her words. Probably a good thing if she doesn’t want Victoria to have her committed.

“Seriously, what is wrong with you?”

“I’m sorry, Victoria,” she chokes out.

“Oh hell, no.” Victoria gets off the sink and rounds on Max. “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me, Max Caulfield. You don’t even know what you’re feeling sorry for, because you have _no idea_ what I’m going through.”

Victoria’s words cut like a whip, but Max can’t bring herself to do anything except stand there and take her lashes.

“You all act like you give a shit, but nobody at this fucking school knows what I’m going through. _Nobody._ The _only_ person who does…” She stops to take a shaky drag and holds the smoke in her lungs like she’s trying to burn something alive inside her. When she exhales, her breath is steady again, and if Victoria can just _will_ herself into composure like that, why can’t Max? “The only person who understands all of this, I bullied to the point where her family had to move her home just to protect her from bitches like me.” She gives a dark laugh and sits back against the sink. “Just deserts, am I right?”

“No.” There’s a hollow ache in her chest at the mention of her old friend, but Max latches onto it; Kate is real, Kate is good, and Kate is the connection she and Victoria share. “No, you’re not right.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’m serious, Victoria. You… you don’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and you don’t deserve to deal with the aftermath alone. I…” She hates that she’s still crying so she tries to do that thing Victoria did to steady her voice, but she fucks it up because of course she does. “I…”

Her vision is blurry but she hears Victoria sniffle.

“I visited Kate in the hospital, after… you know.” She dabs away the tears with her sleeve and sees Victoria turned skyward, her eyes squeezed as tight as the fist crumbling her cigarette.

“Yeah? So?” Victoria says as flakes of tobacco fall to the floor.

“Kate forgave you. She told me about the card you sent. She knew how sorry you were.” She watches Victoria clench her teeth. “And I know about the hearing.”

“Fucking Taylor.”

“She’s just trying to help, and Kate… I’m sure Kate feels the same way you do right now. Please reach out to her, Victoria. You need each other.” Max makes a conscious effort to not include herself in that equation, and it feels like she’s lying. And on top of all the other crap on her plate, she _hates lying_. Her need to see Chloe is so bad now it’s almost a physical pull.

Victoria turns around and grips the sink so hard her knuckles blend into the porcelain. “Can you please leave now?”

“Just think about it, okay?” Max says before she leaves the bathroom and rushes towards the front door. She’s barely out of the school before she’s fumbling her hand in her bag and digging out her phone.

 

* * *

 

Chloe’s still in bed when she gets word that Max is giving herself the day off from school, except Max says it in a way that Chloe can tell she’s in rough shape.

“Dude, come straight back. I’m still in your dorm, won’t go anywhere.”

Max gives a clipped “okay” and hangs up.

Chloe pulls herself out of bed and glances at their toothbrush in Max’s shower caddie. Max is probably having an episode because of Chloe’s stupid brainfart last night; the least she can do now is not morning-breath her to death. She moves towards the toothbrush but she remembers she promised Max she’d stay put, so she grabs Lisa’s feeder bottle and settles for swishing some water around her mouth. Max doesn’t put plant food in there, right?

She’s about to spit the swishwater into Lisa’s planter when she hears Max come through the door, and it’s with amazing self-restraint that she swallows the swill instead. “Blegh.”

Before she has time to turn around, Max finds her way into her arms and starts shaking like jello in an earthquake. “He- fuck- _fuck-_ Chloe- he-”

“Max, what the hell? Who’s ‘he’? Who did this to you?” Chloe tries to pry her off so she can check her for injuries, but Max stays glued to her. “Shit, tell me who it is, and I swear I will lay his ass out.”

“No, god, Chloe,” Max says between breaths, “it’s not like that.” She clutches harder and Chloe almost says ouch.

“So...” She tries to adjust herself. “You’re saying you _don’t_ need me to kick the shit out of anyone?”

“No, I just… need _you_.” Max buries her face in what poets would probably consider Chloe’s bosom, and Jesus Christ, Chloe needs to stop getting the warm-and-fuzzies at the worst possible moments.

“I’m here, Max.” She cups a hand against the back of Max’s head. “I’m right here. Mama Chloe’s right here.” That brings a funny noise out of Max, and Chloe keeps going. “Oh, honey. What’s the matter? You can tell Mama Chloe.”

Max makes the noise again and her shoulders stop trembling so hard.

“Lord knows I will make you stand here all day until you tell me, y’hear?”

“Why… does Mama Chloe sound like Joyce?”

“Shush, you’re making me break character.”

Max shakes her head and shifts against Chloe’s chest and _god_ , now’s not the time to be enjoying this, Price!

She clears her throat and continues. “As I was saying, Mama Chloe is here, and I have in my pantry a vast array of comfort items.”

“... _‘Comfort_ items’?”

“Yes, sweetie pie. ‘Comfort items’. For instance, might I interest you in a can of whoop-ass?”

She gets a solid chuckle. Just one, but it counts in Chloe’s book.

“State of the art and highly effective against any shitstain who dares mess with my darling Maxaroni. Portable, too!”

“Why do you sound like Army Surplus Joyce now?”

“Ew, like a weird hybrid of Joyce and David? Hella gross, dude.”

A few more chuckles come trickling out, and Max finally peels her face off of Chloe’s skin. She looks up at Chloe. There’s still darkness in her eyes and her bangs are plastered to her face from all the stress-sweat, but there’s also the ghost of a smile.

“There you are.”

Max heaves a massive sigh for such a little body. “What would I do without you, Chloe?”

She brushes Max’s bangs off of her skin. “I told you, dude. You’re stuck with me for life.” She lets her fingers linger on Max’s cheek, and she can practically feel the heat of Max’s blush.

“Promise?”

Chloe wants to say yes, but for some strange reason the word gets stuck behind her teeth and makes her wait a beat too long. Max gives her a confused look and Chloe tries to say something but Rachel flashes in her mind for a moment, and suddenly she feels like they’re standing too close. “Um, you’re acting really goopy right now,” she says as she untangles herself. “Like, goopier than usual.”

“I know.” Max sounds so sad and it’s crazy how many feelings that makes Chloe have – some of which she recognizes and some of which scare the shit out of her. “I’m sorry.”

But her feelings can wait. “You gotta stop apologizing so much, Caulfield.” She pulls out Max’s desk chair and makes her take a seat before kneeling in front of her. “Now tell me, for real. What happened?”

Max drums her fingers on her knees. “I found out that Jefferson’s hearing date has been set.”

A chill spreads through Chloe. “Fuck.”

“Yeah. It’s gonna be in April.”

“Do they know where?”

“In Portland. They’re not gonna let Rachel’s dad-”

That sends an icicle through Chloe’s chest. “Yeah, okay, I get it.”

“I’m sorry, I just-”

“I said I get it, okay?”

Max goes quiet for a second. “Okay, but… if you ever need to talk.”

Chloe sighs and turns her focus to Lisa. This helpless she-plant has leaves that are so green and lush, only because Max has been giving her exactly what she needs, exactly when she needs it. Like Rachel used to do for Chloe when Max was gone. Like Chloe should do now for Max because who else do they have? But that probably means she should stop dwelling on her own shit for a minute and just look out for Max. She gives Max a pat on the knee. “Look, more importantly, are you okay? This has got to be _ass_ for you.”

“That feels like a gross understatement.”

“Ooh, Max with a double-entendre!” Chloe waggles her brows. “Maybe there’s hope for you yet.”

Max’s eyes are still cast down like she wants to fall through the floor, so Chloe stands up and holds out a hand to her. She takes it without pause.

“C’mon, poindexter.” Chloe pulls her to her feet. “If you’re seriously playing hooky today, no way I’m letting you do it at school.”

 

* * *

 

Chloe chauffeurs Max around Arcadia Bay all day, shuttling her to the Two Whales for lunch where Joyce thankfully isn’t on shift to grill her about cutting school, then to the forest so Chloe can find innocent trees to carve obscene shapes into, then to the lighthouse where they sit and remind themselves to look for beauty even when they’re drowning in shit.

Max opens up about the talk she had with Victoria, how isolating it feels to keep silent about what happened, and how grateful she is that she has Chloe in her life. That makes Chloe blush against the Oregon sunset and the image is so arresting that Max’s breath catches in her throat. But when she tries to tell her more, Chloe gets stony about it and changes the subject – which Max shouldn’t have the energy to be that upset about, but it ends up crawling under her skin.

“Chloe, are you sure you’re alright?” She can hear the tinge of irritation in her own voice.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Chloe says without making eye contact.

Max knows not to press when Chloe’s closed off, but she can’t help but take it personally. It doesn’t exactly seem fair for Chloe to keep things from her when she knows everything under the sun about Max. Or _almost_ everything. “Fine. Just know that I’m here if you need to talk, okay?”

“You already said that today. And probably ten times this week.”

“How? It’s only Monday.”

“Whatever.” Chloe gets up from the bench and starts making noisy stretches when Max’s phone goes off. “Who’s that?” There’s a hint of pettiness in her question that would usually annoy Max, but she finds it oddly comforting right now.

Max looks at the number but she doesn’t recognize it. “I don’t know.”

“Feel like finding out?”

She answers and the voice on the other line introduces herself. Her name is Mariana Diaz. She’s the Assistant District Attorney calling on behalf of the Portland DA’s office. She’d like to know if Ms. Caulfield is available to meet at the Arcadia Bay police station this Saturday afternoon at three.

“Um, may I ask what for?”

“We need your deposition, ma’am.”

“...What for?”

“We believe you were the last person to hear from Mister Nathan Prescott. He left a voice message on your mobile device?”

Max just about drops her phone. She’d totally forgotten about that voicemail, about Nathan’s final moments and his last attempt to right his wrongs.

Chloe sits back down and searches Max’s face, which probably looks like death judging from Chloe’s expression. “Everything alright?” She puts a hand on Max’s back and rubs shapes against it.

Max nods and breathes. Long and deep. She’s got this. “Yes,” she says into the phone. “I will see you then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, massive thanks to rob_lentz and u/nadvolk for all your help! Y'guys rock.
> 
> And as always, please feel free to leave what you think is appropriate, and know that I think reviews are just swell =)
> 
> Updates will happen most likely on a biweekly basis from here on out, although please forgive me if I allow myself a little flexibility every once in a while. Life and all that, y'know? ;)


	3. Perspective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recap of last chapter:
> 
> * Chloe rolls Max into a bedsheet burrito, and it's all fun and games until somebody's kidnapping trauma gets triggered.
> 
> * Max finds out that Jefferson's hearing is coming up in April. She realizes that she won't get justice for what Jefferson did to her because in this timeline, he did nothing to her.
> 
> * Victoria handles the news of the hearing poorly and with Victoria-typical anger. Max tries to connect with her but can't because of all of the things that "didn't happen" in this timeline. She ends up suggesting Victoria get in touch with Kate, who moved home to Portland shortly after the rooftop incident.
> 
> * Max gets a call from the DA's office, calling her in for a deposition this coming Saturday.
> 
> * Max and Chloe share a moment that almost turns into something more, but then Chloe thinks of Rachel and chickens out of it.

It’s hard to believe, but the last time Chloe was at the Arcadia Bay precinct, life was a lot less shitty. Getting herself arrested for tagging some stupid billboard, then walking out of the drunk tank the next morning after Rachel bailed her out – it’s actually turned into a nice memory, something from a much simpler time. Get wasted, do dumb stuff, get in trouble, hate the world, get out of trouble, feel better near Rachel, repeat on loop.

And now she’s sitting in her truck, waiting for Max to give a deposition on the kid who murdered Rachel and his teacher who tried to murder Max. As if that’s not dark enough, Max can’t even talk about what Jefferson did to her because either they’d think she was lying or they’d throw her in a straitjacket. And no matter which way the chips fall, Max will never get justice for what she suffered – what she’s _still_ suffering. 

How can their lives be this fucked up?

She wants to find the urge to hit something or _wreck_ something and make herself feel better, but she can’t. It feels like she and Max are drowning and the world just keeps pouring more water on their heads, but she doesn’t have the will to fight back anymore. Not like she did when she was around Rachel.

Rachel always had a way of helping her handle her crap – different from how Max does it. Max stays calm and tries to chill Chloe out when Chloe’s flying into a rage, but Rachel would show her how to _channel_ that rage into something intense and exciting and so damn satisfying. Rachel stoked that fire, that destruction in her and taught her new ways to burn the world down every time she needed a release, and god, she could really use something like that right now.

But she’s gotta keep herself together for Max. The last thing Max needs is to have to give another deposition on why her best friend went and torched the entire town.

So Chloe will just have to settle for taking a lame-ass walk.

She steps out of the truck and starts to reach for her smokes when she sees a pair of faces from a life she barely remembers. They spot her staring and the man averts his eyes like most people do around her, but the woman peers for a closer look. “...Chloe? Chloe Price?”

“Fuck me, if it isn’t Vanessa Caulfield,” she says, then nods at the man gaping at her like she’s the Second Coming of Cthulhu. “Ryan.”

Ryan collects himself quickly enough, but he continues to glance between Chloe’s hair and her truck. He digs out his keys and clicks the remote without taking his eyes off her, and some low-end Lexus nearby makes a beep that says it’s already locked. “Oh, wow. Chloe? I almost didn’t recognize you!” They both come closer but stop short of embracing her, which is just fine by Chloe.

“Chloe, honey,” Vanessa says in a way that suggests she’s not a fan of honey. “It’s so nice to see you.”

“Uh, yeah.” She rubs the back of her neck. “Fancy seeing you guys here.” Ryan and Vanessa both chuckle politely even though she didn’t say anything funny. She’s always hated when they did that. “Speaking of, what _are_ you doing here?”

“Well, Maxine has her deposition today,” Ryan says, “and we wanted to be here for our daughter.”

Vanessa nods along. “That’s right. She shouldn’t have to go through this alone.”

Alone? And what does that make Chloe – chopped liver? “Funny. I didn’t even know she told you about it.”

Vanessa gives Chloe this look that reminds her of when Max was eight and spilled a bowl of steaming soup on herself. Chloe got mad at Vanessa for making the soup so hot that it burned her best friend. She wasn’t invited back to their house much after that. Vanessa always took everything as an attack on her parenting. “Why would you think she wouldn’t tell us?” Vanessa takes a step closer. “We’re her parents!”

“Yeah, no, I didn’t mean…” Chloe tries to backtrack but screw it. These are the people who stole Max from her the day of her dad’s funeral, and the most fucked up part is, she honestly doesn’t think they remember doing that. “So, uh, are you here to take her back to Seattle or something?”

Vanessa lets out a long-suffering sigh like she’s talking to a very slow child, and Chloe swears she feels a vessel pop in her eye. “No, Chloe. She still has school here.”

Ryan clears his throat. “But if she wants to come home with us, we can always find her a local high school to enroll in.”

Vanessa’s brows harden for a second. “We can discuss that as a family,” she says with some stiffness, “but yes, that is also an option.”

“There’s just too much awful stuff happening in Arcadia Bay now.” Ryan shakes his head slowly and puts an arm around his wife’s shoulder. “It never used to be like this.”

“Right.” Chloe shoves her hands into her pockets so she can give them ninja middle fingers. They’re not Arcadians anymore; they gave up their right to trash it the day they left. “Hey, Joyce know you’re in town? I mean, you guys were friends and all – figured maybe you’d try to get in touch. See all the _‘awful stuff’_ happening in her life now.”

Vanessa gets into this defensive silence that reminds Chloe of the first ride Max took in her truck, and Chloe _hates_ that she sees Max in her mother. They’re such different people, but Max had to come from somewhere. It sucks that Vanessa has to be part of that ‘somewhere’.

“We haven’t had a chance,” Ryan says after his wife fails to come up with an excuse. “We’re just here for Maxine today. Then I have to jet back to Seattle for work.”

“Yeah, sure. But Max stays, right?”

He levels her with a look and she remembers how she always used to be intimidated by Ryan – her best friend’s dad with the power to ground them for a week just for not finishing their broccoli. William would always unground her when she got home, but she couldn’t hang out with Max and that was no different from being grounded herself. And here she is again, all grown up and face-to-face with the man who still has the power to take Max away from her.

Vanessa gives her husband a nudge without taking her eyes off Chloe. “Like we said, Chloe, she’s got school here. She only has one more semester to go. So she’ll come home only if absolutely necessary.”

“Okay. I hear you.” She swallows something bitter and turns to Ryan. “Just remember to take her wishes into consideration, alright?”

Ryan seems to grow three sizes and his eyes turn to steel. “Of course we’re going to take her wishes into consideration. I don’t know what-”

“Never mind.” Chloe nods at the police station. “Here she comes.”

She ignores Ryan’s lingering glare and focuses on Max as she comes through the doors, looking like her head is in another world. In fact, she’s in such a fog that she literally walks past her own parents as she makes her way to Chloe.

“Maxine?” Vanessa says, and poor Max just about jumps out of her skin.

“Holy shit!” Max puts her hand over her heart like she’s making sure it’s still in her chest. “Mom? _Dad?_ ” She blinks at them a few times, then practically trips her way into their arms. “Oh my god, Mom! Dad! I can’t believe you’re here!"

The Caulfields wrap themselves in a big family hug, and Chloe doesn’t notice herself backing away until her ass bumps against a stupid moped and she has to scramble to keep it from tumbling over. Max breaks away from her parents and turns to the noise.

“Shit, sorry dude,” Chloe says as she fumbles with the kickstand. “Didn’t mean to ruin the family moment.”

“What? No! Chloe, my _parents!_ ” Max gestures to them like they’re a Christmas morning surprise puppy and she can’t believe Chloe’s not more excited.

“Yes, Max. I see them. They are here.” She finally gets the moped to stand on its own damn legs and figures her job here is done. She shrugs and turns away from Max and her family with a wave. “Guess I’ll give you guys some time to catch up.”

Vanessa starts to tell her how nice it was to see her again – yeah right – when Max cuts in. “What are you talking about? You haven’t seen each other in forever!” She pulls her mother towards Chloe by the hand. “We should all go to the Two Whales for dinner!”

It’s funny how some things just don’t change. Max never really understood how much her parents disliked Chloe even when they were kids; she never questioned why they only hung out at Chloe’s house or, if they were at Max’s, why Chloe’s parents would always be called to pick her up early. For someone who observes the world through such keen eyes, it’s kind of crazy that she can miss something so obvious. Or maybe it’s just easier not to see it?

But there’s something really different, really _peaceful_ in the way Max looks right now. Like she feels buoyed being surrounded by the people she loves and trusts most – their support all laid within arm’s reach like a soul food buffet on a hangover. Ryan and Vanessa probably don’t deserve all that credit when it was always Chloe who was there for Max as a kid, Chloe who Max told all her secrets to, Chloe who make sure nobody messed with Max at school. And she certainly doesn’t know if she’s up for suffering through an entire meal with the Caulfields when her mood is so shitty to begin with, but for Max’s sake, she has to at least try.

“Y'know, Two Whales is a good idea, hippie,” she says as she catches the chagrin on Vanessa and Ryan’s faces. She throws a wink at them. “I think Joyce might even be on shift.” 

 

* * *

 

Max wants to ride with Chloe to the diner, but her dad insists that she take a spin in his new company car.

“It’s a Lexus!” he says with his chest puffed, his hand stroking the hood like it’s made of ivory. “Only two other guys drove it before me, and one got promoted to VP!”

Her mom chimes in with a few hopes about his own future with the company, but Max’s attention is on Chloe making a quiet exit. She’s in her truck and pulling away before Max has time to say ‘meet you there’.

“Hey, guys?” Max says when her dad’s finished telling her about the heated seats. “Should we get going, too? I don’t wanna make Chloe wait for us.”

Her parents exchange a look before her mom says, “She’ll be okay for a few minutes, sweetie. She’ll have her mother with her.” She cups a hand on Max’s cheek. “Just like you have yours with you right now.”

And that gives Max a stitch of guilt, because her folks did drive all the way down here to see her; she really shouldn’t be rushing her time with them. “Sorry. I _am_ glad you guys are here.” She smiles at them both. “Thank you so much for coming just for me.”

“You know we’d do anything for you, Maxine,” her dad says. “We'd never let you go through something as stressful as a deposition by yourself." Max starts to reassure him that she's not alone, but he talks across her words. "And listen, peanut. If you ever feel like this is all getting to be too much-”

“Ryan.”

“No, all I’m saying is, there’s a lot going on in your life right now. And if it starts to feel like it did six years ago-”

“ _Ryan!_ ”

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s okay, Dad.” She manages to cut them off before they can start arguing. “I’m doing fine, I promise. I’ve got Chloe here with me.”

Her parents share another glance but she doesn’t get a chance to ask what that’s about when her mom starts ushering them into the car. “You’re right, Maxine. We should probably get going. Don’t want Chloe to think we abandoned her, do we?”

Max isn’t sure if it’s her mom’s words or the way she said it that’s sitting so heavy on her chest, but suddenly she's struggling to get comfortable in the back of her dad’s Lexus. “She won’t think that. I hope.” She’s not sure who she’s trying to convince.

The drive over takes longer than it should so her dad can show off the turning radius on the backstreets. He asks a couple of questions about the deposition and is satisfied with “Fine” and “Nothing major” as answers, then starts giving a rundown on the bluetooth connectivity features in this thing. Her mom catches her eye in the mirror and gives a shake of her head, but Max senses that she likes this car every bit as much as he does.

Funny. Max finds it way more comfortable in Chloe’s old junker. 

When they finally pull into the Two Whales lot, Max’s is relieved to see Chloe’s still there. She’s smoking a cigarette and sporting a pretty mean scowl, but at least she didn’t leave.

“About fucking time you showed up,” she says as soon as Max steps out of the Lexus, and Max thanks her lucky stars her parents are still in the car.

“Chloe,” Max hisses and walks up to her. “You know my parents hate swearing.”

Chloe’s eyes harden at her for a brief second but the edges fall away quickly enough. “Yeah, yeah, fine.” She raises her right hand. “I promise I’ll be on my best behavior or whatever.”

Her mom catches up to them first. “Why would you need to make that promise?”

“No reason, Mom,” Max cuts across Chloe before anymore curse words come out. She waits for her dad to join them before asking, “You guys ready to see Joyce again?”

“Actually, she’s not here,” Chloe says, and all eyes turn to her. “Forgot Saturday night is when she and David do that marriage counseling crap with their church.”

“Oh.” Her mom frowns and says in her polite voice, “Well, that’s too bad. I was really looking forward to seeing her again.”

Chloe stiffens next to Max. “Were you, now?”

Her dad makes a hum, then asks, “Who’s David?”

“My step-ass.”

He clears his throat. “Your step-what, Chloe?”

“Ass.”

Max shoots her a glare. “ _Chloe._ ”

“Yes, Max?” Chloe stares back at her with a clenched jaw, and Max can’t tell if the glint in her eye is an apology or an accusation.

“Maxine’s right,” her dad says, and Max instantly dreads his next words. “That’s a very disrespectful way to speak about your step-father.”

“Yeah, oops, you know what?” Chloe starts backing away to her truck. “Totally forgot: I have this thing I need to do.”

“Chloe, c’mon. Don’t-”

“Sorry, Max. I’ve gotta get outta here.” She pulls the door open and steps in. “Just… text me when you’re done, alright?” She nods at Max’s parents. “Ryan, Vanessa, peace,” she says before yanking the door shut, throwing on the ignition, and peeling away.

When the truck is out of earshot, Max turns to her parents and apologizes for Chloe's behavior. “But you probably shouldn’t have said that about David," she says to her dad. "She has a complicated relationship with him, and… he’s done wrong by her in the past.”

Her mom whips her head around, eyes wide and concerned. “What did he do?”

Max measures how much they need to know and says, “He used to be rough with Chloe.”

Her dad’s face darkens. “You mean he’s abusive?”

“Not…” How does she answer that question? Say yes, and she’d be branding David a monster even though she knows he’s a decent man with bad ways of coping. But say no, and she’d be lying. She navigates for somewhere in between – something she was hoping to be done with after the deposition. “He’s wants to do right, and he treats Joyce very well. He's just… made mistakes when it comes to Chloe.”

“Maxine,” her dad says and puts a hand on her shoulder, “I think you should stop hanging around their house.”

Her stomach sinks like a stone. “Dad, he’s not a bad person. And he would never hurt me,” she says and tries to sound convincing. “He feels terrible about what he did to Chloe, but if anything, _she’s_ the one you should be concerned about.”

“Chloe can handle herself, peanut.”

“And so can Maxine,” her mom says for her. “She’s old enough to know what’s best for herself, and if she trusts this David person, then so do I.”

“Okay, but-”

“Mom, Dad…” Max takes a long breath. This is _so_ not the reunion she was hoping for. “Can we please just get some food?”

 

* * *

 

 

Sometimes anger feels good for Chloe. When she knows who to direct it at, it can be satisfying as fuck. She'll imagine cursing the asshole out, flipping them off, insulting every last detail about them, maybe even TPing their house. Imagine it, or do it for real – whichever is easier.

But right now, her anger is not satisfying at all, because right now, she’s angry in every possible direction and she has no idea where to point it. She knows the Caulfields suck a fat one so she can be pissed at them, but Max? What the hell happened back there? Was Max in the wrong for siding with her parents, or was it Chloe’s bad for blowing a fuse?

She slams her bedroom door to make a point even though nobody’s in the house to hear it, then throws herself on her bed with a hard bellyflop – the kind that crushes enough air out of her lungs for it to be a little painful and a little satisfying.

Ever since Rachel’s funeral, it’s like she’s started seeing these new sides of Max and she never knows how to react. Or maybe there really isn’t anything new; maybe Max was always like this but Chloe just didn’t see it before. Just how much did Max use her rewind back when she had it? Although, can Chloe even fault Max for using the powers that were given to her? She probably would’ve done way worse shit in Max’s shoes.

She wonders what Rachel would think about all this, and she starts to miss how easy and uncomplicated things were with Rachel – but then she snorts out loud. Holy fuck. She can’t believe she just thought that. It really is amazing how time can whitewash pretty much anything.

But at least Rachel always took Chloe’s side. Over her own parents, over Wells, over every single person that crossed them. She always stood with Chloe, no questions asked, and Chloe always did the same without a thought. It was them against the world, _always_. She misses that so fucking much.

She reaches under her bed and fumbles around for a few seconds before pulling out her metal stash box. This might be a really stupid idea – like picking at a wound when it’s just starting to scab over – but she wants to try. What does she have to lose at this point?

She takes out the picture of Rachel, turns to lie on her back, holds Rachel’s face in front of her, and just stares at it. At Rachel’s half-smile, her knowing eyes, that earring that would always tickle Chloe’s neck whenever she…

Yeah, okay. Still hurts like a bitch. But isn’t pain just an old friend to her at this point?

Only the pain is different now. She’s expecting that familiar blow to the gut, like the one she used to feel whenever Rachel would fuck her and blow her heart open only to leave right after. It’s that suffocating sense of want, of need, of fucking _yearning_ for something that’s teased at her fingertips but she could never quite grasp. Like a damn fog. Rachel’s love was a damn fog – she always felt it nearby but she could never hold onto it, could never tell where it began and ended or how far she could keep moving with her life before she stepped out of its bounds. In the end she’d forced herself to stand perfectly still and hoped that’d be enough to stay wrapped in it, but that hadn’t worked, either. Even before the Rachel disappeared, _way_ before she disappeared, she had slipped away from Chloe, left her behind, left her reaching out at nothing.

That pain used to destroy her. But she doesn’t feel it anymore. She’s thinking about it, but she’s not feeling it.

And what the hell is that supposed that mean?

Beside her, she hears Rachel’s chuckle. “You must think I’m a real asshole, huh? Still causing you all this grief even in death.”

Chloe swallows a growl. “Don’t use that word, Rach.”

“Sorry, but it’s true.” There’s a smirk in Rachel’s voice and it sends Chloe’s teeth grinding. “And you can’t just keep running from the truth.”

“I’m not running from anything.” She turns to Rachel. “I just wanna stop feeling like this all the damn time.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m… lost in a sea of _shit._ ” She tosses her head back. “Damn it. Why can’t I just miss you like a normal person? And why can’t shit be easy with Max? Why does everything have to be so goddamn complicated?”

“Because that’s how it is, Chloe.” Rachel props herself up on an elbow. “But you know you’re allowed to feel this way, right? Your situation is seriously fucked up, so you’re allowed to _feel_ seriously fucked up.” 

Chloe snorts. “Thanks for validating my feelings, doc. You’re getting better at this.” She slides an arm under her head and rests on it. “They have actual counseling courses up in heaven?”

“Um, what makes you think I’m in heaven?”

“Where else would you be?” She narrows her eyes. “You were my angel, Rach.”

“Mhm. I also fucked around behind your back.”

Chloe winces. “Dude, why’d you have to go and bring that up?”

“Why’d you want to forget it?”

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore. I’d rather try and forgive you.”

Rachel flattens her with a glare. “And why on Earth would you do that?”

“Fucking because.”

“Because it’s easier to forgive people for screwing you over than to actually confront the truth?”

She feels a burn start up in her chest. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“Say you’re mad at me for lying about Frank. Or better yet, say that you hate me for stringing you along for three years.”

Chloe pauses to search for an answer before she says, “Maybe I am. And maybe I do. But that doesn’t change the fact that I fucking loved you, Rachel.”

Rachel lets out a breath and Chloe can hear a smile in it. “Past tense, huh?”

That catches Chloe off guard. Why _did_ she put it like that? She turns to Rachel and says, “Um.”

“It’s okay, Price. It’s not like you can hurt my feelings or anything.” Rachel points a finger at herself. “Dead, remember?”

“Dude, I asked you not to use that word.”

“Have you ever known me to do what you asked?”

Chloe snorts. “Fair point.” She pushes herself to a sit and Rachel follows suit. “I dunno, Rach. I still miss you. Every day. Like crazy.”

“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”

“But I don’t know why I said it like that – past tense and shit.”

“I do.” Rachel tilts her head and grins. “You’re not in love with me anymore.”

Chloe sits and plays with her fingernails for a bit as she mulls over those words. Is it true? Is she really… _over_ Rachel? “If you’re right, if I’m actually over you, then how come it still hurts so fucking bad? Every time I think about you, it’s like I’m sticking a flaming poker through my own chest.”

“What a lovely image.” Rachel smirks at her. “C'mon, you really need me to spell it out for you?”

“Like I’m five years old, yeah.”

“It’s because we were best friends, Chloe. Despite all that noise with Frank and with our history and with everything else, underneath it all we were best friends first and foremost. We always had each other’s backs no matter what, remember?”

Chloe lets that settle for a moment before she finds a smile surfacing. “Guess we did, didn’t we?”

“Yup. We were hella best friends.” Rachel shuffles closer. “Now, Max? She’s a different story.”

“Yeah so, I’m aware that shit got weird with Max tonight, but can we not bring her into this?” She returns Rachel’s smirk. “Or did you not notice we were having a moment just now?”

Rachel chuckles at her. “It wasn’t just tonight, Price, but fine. I’ll indulge you.”

“You’re far too kind.”

“One of my endless list of qualities,” Rachel says. “So! You really wanna take a trip down memory lane?” She nods at the stereo. “Put on some damn Firewalk!”

 

* * *

 

Max manages to convince her parents to drop her off at Chloe’s after dinner. Or, convince her dad; her mom doesn’t seem thrilled but she backs Max up, practically orders her dad to respect Max’s wishes.

She really shouldn’t have said anything about David. Now they’re going to be worried about her hanging out at Chloe’s house when it’s the one place in the world she can feel completely safe anymore. It’s probably a terrible thing that she doesn’t feel the same way about her own house, but without Chloe there…  

When they pull up to the Price home, Chloe’s light is on and Max can hear muffled music even from inside the car. She tells her parents that probably means Joyce and David aren’t home yet, and she gets that they’re not sure about David, but is it a little weird that they don’t seem disappointed about Joyce?

She hugs them goodbye at the car, walks straight to the door, and rings the doorbell. When nobody answers after a solid minute, she decides to screw her scruples and digs out her emergency key. Her parents start to drive off when she waves to them through the open door, and she braces herself as she heads up to Chloe’s room.

Some punk band she doesn’t recognize is blasting through Chloe’s door. Max knocks a few times and isn’t surprised that Chloe doesn’t hear her, so she steps into the room unannounced to find Chloe sitting on the floor, leaning against her bed with her eyes closed, a bottle of beer in one hand and a photograph in the other. It almost looks like she’s asleep, except she’s rocking a knee to the music and rubbing her thumb across the photo.

Max gets close enough for Chloe to hear her. “Chloe!”

“ _Jesus Christ on a bicycle!_ ” Chloe jumps a foot off the floor and drops the photo, and Max’s heart clenches when she catches a glimpse of it. “What the fuck- _Max_?” Chloe grabs her remote and cuts the music. “What are you doing here? You scared the shit outta me!”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”

“Well, you did, ya jerk.” Chloe shoots a glare at her before she lies back against the bed and says, “You were supposed to text me, not creep up on me in my own room.”

“Yeah, I know.” Max sits down opposite Chloe and crosses her legs. “I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Chloe says with her eyes averted.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Yes. I am super cereal.” Chloe puts on a teasing grin but it doesn’t reach all the way, isn’t bright like it usually is.

“Chloe, cut it out. What happened back there? Why did you take off like that?”

“Nothing. I told you, I had shit to do.”

“Like drink beer?” She stops herself from saying “and stare at Rachel’s photograph?”

“Look, maybe I don’t like being told how to talk about my own step-ass, okay?”

Max sighs. “Yeah, I get it. My dad didn’t know what he was saying. I’m sorry about that.”

“Not really your fault,” Chloe says, but there’s a strain in her voice like she swallowed some words.

“Either way, I’m sorry for what he said.” Max plants her elbows on her knees and leans forward. “But you did promise you’d be on your best behavior.”

Chloe gives her this childish defensive look, but it doesn’t last long before she sags a little. “I know.” She scratches the back of her head. “That was my bad. I was in a shitty mood, but, uh, that’s no excuse. Sorry.”

“Thanks, and it’s okay. Things got a little weird after you left, but we made it out in one piece.”

Chloe snorts. “Families, huh?”

Max wants to say that hers is usually great, that she really can’t complain, but she holds it back. Instead, she asks, “Why were you in such a shitty mood?”

Chloe shoots up so quickly she almost knocks her head against Max’s. “Nope, not doing this.”

“What?”

“Not gonna talk about me when you’re the one that went through a fucking deposition today,” she says, and Max's heart takes a thump so violent she's sure it's audible. “Everything go okay?” Chloe asks.

Max waits until she's sure her voice won't shake with her pulse before answering. “It sucked,” she says, “but I guess it could’ve been worse.”

“Yeah? They nice to you?”

A warmth flushes through Max; no matter what happens, Chloe’s first concern is always if Max has been treated right. How many people in the world have someone who cares about them like that? “The DA's assistant was all business, but she was nice enough.” That seems to appease Chloe. “But she asked me all these questions, and I had to lie through my teeth.”

“Oh, boy. That must’ve been rough for Honest Max.”

“Shut up, it was. I had to make up a story about when I first heard Nathan’s message,” she says, and tries to keep the sound of Nathan's voice at a distance. “I told them that I got it when I was on campus, and I feared for my life because ever since we tracked David’s surveillance to the… to the Dark Room, I started suspecting Mark Jefferson.”

“Wait.” Chloe tilts her head. “How did you connect Jefferson to that place? We had no idea at the time.”

“I know. But I…” She clenches her fists. “I know I can’t send him to prison with my real story. But that doesn’t mean I can’t say things to point them in the right direction.”

Chloe blows a low whistle. “Color me impressed, Caulfield. What’d you tell them?”

“I told them that I recognized his style in the photographs on the walls, that a photographer always knows another photographer’s work.”

“...Is that actually true?”

“I can certainly make a case for it, although I was pretty convinced they were Nathan’s work at the time.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” Max picks at the rug and waits for Chloe’s next question, the one she knows Chloe cares about most. She doesn't have to wait long. 

“And how are you feeling?”

She smiles and feels the urge to bury herself in Chloe’s arms. Today was such a fucked up day, but she lets herself melt into the knowledge that no matter what happens, she and Chloe will always have each other’s backs. Always.

“Not great,” she says, then feels her fingers start to grow cold as she remembers what they told her. “They, um…” Chloe grabs her hands and curls them into her palms. “When this thing goes to trial, they might ask me to testify.”

“Jesus,” Chloe breathes as her grip hardens around Max’s hands. “That’s so fucking unfair. It should be against the law to put victims back through their trauma like that."

“I’m not technically a victim, Chloe. But even if I was, I’d want to do my part to make sure that _asshole_ never hurts another person again.”

Her fingers must feel like ice to Chloe, but in a way that only makes her more determined; she wants to nail that bastard to the wall so she never has to feel like this again, so nobody ever has to feel like this because of him again.

She gives Chloe’s hands a squeeze. “Hey, so they’re not gonna make you give a deposition?”

“Nah. Cops have my witness affidavit or whatever from when they first, um…” Chloe draws her hands back and clears her throat. “When they first… found Rachel.” The muscles in her jaw tense and she brings her knees up to her chest, her eyes drifting somewhere far away. Somewhere Max wishes she could shield her from, help her forget the blue of the bag, the dirt and blood under her torn nails. The smell of her dead hopes and rotting dreams clinging to her nose.

When Max blinks, she finds herself looking at Rachel’s photo on the floor, trying to see it through Chloe’s eyes. What does Chloe feel when she sees Rachel’s face, Rachel’s smile, Rachel’s hair? Max can’t imagine that loss. Even when she saw Chloe die before her eyes, saw her body fall lifeless to the ground right next to Rachel’s, it was never the same; Max had a way to cheat death, cheat sorrow and grief and bring Chloe back to her. What would it feel like if she… lost Chloe now?

Just the idea of it threatens to crater her, but it’s Chloe’s actual reality. Chloe’s life, every day, for the past six years.

Max wants so badly to take Chloe's pain away.

Chloe clears her throat again and her eyes fall back on Max. When she follows Max’s gaze, she seems surprised to see Rachel’s picture there.

“Shit, um-” she grabs the photo and pushes it back in her stash box, although Max isn’t sure why Chloe feels the need to do that. Max may not have known Rachel and may not know what it’s like to lose Rachel, but Chloe shouldn’t have to face her grief alone.

Unless she realizes how it makes Max feel to look at Rachel's face. How Max knows she can never smile as beautifully as Rachel could, or how her eyes can never be as magnetic as Rachel’s, even her hair never as vibrant – but she stops her train of thought there.

No. Not this again.

She can’t be jealous and petty and _pathetic_ about Rachel. She’s better than that; Chloe needs her to be better than that.

“It’s okay to talk about her, you know. About Rachel.” She ignores the twist in her gut. “I know she meant the world to you-”

“Max, please.” Chloe looks back up at her. “Please, can we not do this? I can’t. Not with you.”

Those words land hard enough to knock the wind out of her, but Chloe grabs at her hands again. 

“N- no, not like that. Just…” Chloe leans her head back and rakes in a breath before facing Max. “Look, I don’t want to make this all about me, alright? Not when you’re the one being put through the wringer.”

“I’m okay, Chloe.”

The chuckle Chloe lets out sounds brittle, close to breaking. “After all these years, you still can’t lie worth a damn.”

Max ignores that jab. “You need to stop doing this to yourself.”

“Doing what?”

“I… I know you need your space sometimes,” she says despite the hard thump in her heart. “But you need to stop shouldering everything on your own. You are… _the_ most amazing person for always being my rock, but maybe you can let me be yours sometimes.” 

Chloe doesn’t say anything, just breathes.

“Chloe, let me help. You don’t need to do this on your own. You know you… You can lean on me.”

Max’s hand sits in Chloe’s, her fingers brushing, squeezing Chloe’s, letting Chloe know that she’s there, that she’ll always be there. After a long while, Chloe glances at her with softness and the hint of a smile in her eyes. “Lean on you… when I’m not strong?”

That takes Max so off guard that a lone giggle falls out of her. “Um, okay. I can be your motown rock.” She tries for a smile at Chloe and it actually comes, genuine and bearing all of the affection she holds for this ridiculous, amazing, beautiful, one-in-a-million girl in front of her. She hopes it can tell Chloe everything she means to her, because lord knows words aren’t enough. “I mean it, okay? You shouldn’t have to carry us both. Try… letting me share your load.”

Chloe stares at her for a long time like she’s sussing her out, which should be ridiculous after how many years of best-friendship, but Max sort of gets it. Something’s shifted – been shifting between them for a while now, and nothing is simple anymore. _They’re_ not simple anymore. She can’t keep expecting Chloe to trust her blindly like when they were kids and thought the worst thing that could come between them was fighting over who got to race as Wario. Or even like when they first ran back into each other last October and Max bent time itself again and again just to keep Chloe from seeing the worst of her.

They’re on new ground now, and Max can’t blame Chloe for needing to feel it out first. She just hopes Chloe can still find her way back to her.

Chloe lets out a sigh eventually. “I appreciate that, Max. I just… barely know what’s going on in my own head sometimes, you know?”

“I know.”

She takes another moment before she meets Max’s eyes. “I think I just need a little time right now. To figure out how to come to you with this, because it’s… kind of new territory for me.”

It’s a vague answer but at least one that holds some promise – which is more than Chloe’s been willing to give so far. And if Chloe needs to take baby steps, then Max will be there to hold her hand every step of the way. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

“Thanks. And, uh, you’re right. We are better as a team.”

“Wise words, Young Chloe.”

Chloe gives her a grin, one with more brightness and life in it, one that can almost fool Max into believing they’re okay. “Duh, of course they are – they came out of my mouth!” Chloe says and smacks her lips.

And Max wishes Chloe hadn’t just done that, hadn’t just drawn Max’s attention to her lips, right there, pink and moist and probably softer to the touch than anyone would expect, the way Chloe is. She wonders if she’d actually enjoy the taste of beer if it was on Chloe’s lips. The taste of cigarettes, even. Maybe they would both feel better about everything if she just closed the distance right now. It feels like they could find so many answers in each other if she could just… go for it, _just-_

“Uh, Max?”

Chloe’s eyeing her all weird and holy shit! Did she _actually_ just get caught staring?

“Ma-ax.”

She shakes her head and tries to clear away her pervy thoughts before Chloe can find a way to read them. “Yeah.”

Chloe bends down to catch her eye. “You with me, Caulfield?”

“Yeah.”

“Lost you for a sec there.”

“Um, yeah.”

Chloe pats her on the knee with a snort. “My, what a riveting conversationalist you are.”

“Can… can we talk about something else?” Max gets up and tries to put some distance between herself and what just happened. “Like, literally anything else?”

Judging by the cocky smirk on Chloe’s face, there’s absolutely no way she doesn’t know where Max’s mind just was. But Chloe doesn’t press the issue – which is what Max wanted, but it leaves a disappointment all the same.

“So, um…” Max searches her mind for a safe topic and says the first thing that comes. “What do you want to do for your birthday?”

Chloe looks at her for a moment and clambers to her feet. “Huh. Guess my birthday’s coming up, isn’t it?”

Max almost wants to laugh because Chloe Price is not one to let anybody forget about her Big Day – but the last time she was around for one of Chloe’s birthdays was in a different life. There’s a hard shock when she realizes that she can’t be sure how much Chloe wants to celebrate being alive anymore. Well, that needs to be fixed, pronto. “Hell, yeah. It’s your big 2-0 next week! You’ll be officially old enough for an AARP membership!”

Chloe pokes her in the rib. “Sweet. Think that’ll get me discount for you at Gap Kids?”

“You dork.” She pokes back. “But seriously, this is a _huge_ birthday! You only turn 20 once-”

“Same logic for every birthday, Einstein.”

“-so we need to do something special!”

Chloe runs a hand through her hair. “Yeah, fuck it, you’re right. We totally deserve to blow off some steam, don’t we?” She locks her eyes with Max’s. “So? Whaddaya have in mind?”

Even when Chloe’s trying to sound excited these days, her voice is weighed down by all the crap her life has heaped on her. Max doesn’t expect a good birthday to be some silver bullet for all of Chloe’s demons, but it’s a place to start.

And she needs to get it right.

“Let’s take a trip.”

Chloe cocks an eyebrow. “A trip?” 

“Yes! Let’s drive out to Portland next weekend.” She grabs Chloe’s hands. “We can rent a hotel for the night and really hit the town – start your twenties off right!”

A few beats pass before Chloe lets out a smile. “That’s actually not a bad idea, hippie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thank you to rob_lentz and u/nadvolk for reading, re-reading, and re-re-reading this beast.
> 
> This chapter ended up being a monster that kicked my butt. It was written months ago but went through several reconstructive surgeries in the past two weeks and grew larger with each one. I hope the end result is worth it, though!
> 
> As always, please feel free to leave whatever you feel appropriate and know that comments are the real Christmas morning surprise puppies.
> 
> (Side Note: I will be trying to stick to a biweekly update schedule from here on out, except if things like, um, life get in the way.)


	4. Portland

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recap of last chapter:
> 
> * Max gives her deposition, where she tries to point as many clues to Jefferson as possible.
> 
> * Ryan and Vanessa Caulfield drive down to be with Max after her deposition, and they're less than thrilled to find out what a big role Chloe plays in Max's life again. Chloe's equally unenthusiastic to be reminded that Max was the product of those two jerkbags.
> 
> * When Max seems to take her parents' side on something, Chloe storms away to fume. With all that angry-with-Max alone time, she chats with "Rachel" and comes to the realization that she might finally not be in love with Rachel anymore.
> 
> * After Max and Chloe make up, they decide they'd drive to Portland for Chloe's 20th birthday weekend.

When Max makes them hit the road first thing in the morning, Chloe kneejerks a grumble about waking up at the dick-crack of dawn. But it’s more out of habit than anything; she’s actually just touched that Max is this excited to celebrate her birthday. Max took care of everything – booking the hotel, looking up things to do, even plotting their pit stops despite the drive being less than two hours. It’s honestly sweet how much effort Max puts into her. Chloe can’t remember the last time someone did that for her of their own free will – went out of their way to do this much just because they wanted to see her happy.

And the drive is pretty smooth – until they’re about halfway to Portland and Max’s phone starts blowing up. At first Chloe thinks it’s the DA’s office or some shit again, but then she spots this smile on Max’s face as she texts back and forth with whoever, and Chloe decides to let the flare in her chest turn into words.

“Who’s more important than me?” She makes sure it comes out like a joke. “Loverboy?”

“Who?” Max says absently, then cottons on. “Oh god, _Warren?_ Stop being a loser, Chloe.”

“So _not_ loverboy?”

Max rolls her eyes. “It’s actually Kate.”

“Oh!” Ah, fuck. Of course it’s Kate. Chloe kicks herself because being jealous of Kate was a terrible idea the first time, and it’s probably just as stupid now. “So! How the hell _is_ Kate? Haven’t heard her name in a while.”

“Pretty good, I think. She’s just giving me ideas for where to take you tonight so you’re not tempted to drag me bar-hopping.”

Something about that sentence sounds off to Chloe, so she does a quick thumb-through of Things Max Probably Said While Chloe Was Too High To Remember. She knows Kate Marsh moved home after the roof incident, but she can’t remember where. She takes a stab. “Um, that’s right! I, uh, forgot Kate lives in Portland now.”

From her periphery she can see Max staring at her, but without taking her eyes off the road it’s impossible to read Max’s expression and know if she’s been sussed out. Max waits a moment before asking, “Did you just guess that?”

“No way! I hella remember everything you say.” Chloe’s tone is pretty convincing, if she does say so herself. “Why would you even accuse–”

Max starts laughing and it’s clearly directed at Chloe.

“Why are you laughing at me, jerk?” She puts on her best scowl.

“Because you are so obvious!” Max does her little snort thing. “You have literally no memory of me telling you Kate moved to Portland, do you?”

“Hey, if I stick to my story hard enough, it’ll turn into fact.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how facts work,” Max says with a smirk.

“Yeah, yeah, fine. Busted.” Chloe flashes Max a quick grin before turning back to the road. “So maybe I don’t always remember _everything_ you say.”

“Color me shocked.”

Chloe gives her a soft elbow. “I know, I’m a monster.” Max elbows back and goes back to her phone, but as more texts from Kate come in, Chloe spots Max’s smile drooping a little, slipping a bit lower.

Poor Max. It must suck to have nobody at school she can call a friend anymore. And it’s funny, but Chloe’s seen how well Max has been fitting in with those Blackwell kids – at least the ones who aren’t total dickwads. Max is so much better with people than she used to be and Chloe doesn’t really need to protect her from bullies anymore, but Max doesn’t seem to have noticed. It’s like to Max’s mind, she’s still just some… what was it? ‘Shy, cliché geek’ who had one friend to her name before Chloe crashed the party. Well, one friend plus whatever _Wa-arren_ counts as.

Chloe wrestles down the shittier part of herself and decides to ask, “Do you, uh, wanna hang out with Kate?”

A beat passes and Max says, “Yes, but not this weekend.” She leans into view. “I want it to be just us this weekend.”

The way Max says that – all cute and shy and accidentally seductive – makes Chloe’s heart start doing these crazy jumps like a fucking nerd, and she has to try her best to keep her eyes on the road ahead. “Okay! Yeah! Cool!” she says stupidly, then cackles like someone who’s never heard of the word chill.

What the fuck is wrong with her?

Chloe glimpses Max giving her a small smile that looks like it’s wrapped in nerves too, and for whatever reason that only makes Chloe more anxious. She’s weirdly thankful when Max breaks the silence.

“Besides,” Max says and pitches a chuckle that sounds forced, “we couldn’t hang out with her even if we wanted to.”

Chloe darts a quick glance at her. “Oh?”

There’s something hidden behind the little breath that Max takes. “She finally finished her book, and she’s driving out to a conference this weekend to meet with book agents!” Max’s lips are turned up and her voice hits all the right notes of someone who’s happy for her friend, but it’s about a decibel louder than where it should be, where Max’s actual happiness usually sits.

The mood dips a darker shade for reasons Chloe can’t figure out. “Max, that’s awesome news!” she says to try and kick the bad juju.

“Right? It’s _amazing!_ ” Max says, and Chloe still hears that weird strain between her words.

There’s more going on with Max than meets the eye right now but much as Chloe wants to peek inside that pretty little head of hers, she doesn’t want to force her to talk. Plus, it doesn’t mean they can’t have a kickass weekend to take their minds off all the shit on their plates. Chloe’ll just have to step up her game, turn her excitement to 11 and her cynical remarks to 0 – okay, maybe more like 2 – and make sure Max feels appreciated for how rad she is.

“Tell me, Miss Portlandia. Where you taking me first?”

 

* * *

  

So, it’s probably a little bit silly how nervous Max feels; after all, how could there be anything more familiar and comforting than hanging out with Chloe?

Except she can’t shake the sense that there’s a _lot_ riding on this weekend. For one, it’s Chloe’s birthday celebration, and as her BFF it’s Max’s sworn duty to make sure it goes off without a hitch. It’s also their first real road trip together, ever; even when they were kids and William would take them on adventures, the furthest they’d ever go was Lighthouse Park.

But most importantly, this is her chance to be the one who lifts Chloe up, to try and repay Chloe for all the nights she’s spent having Max’s back. Chloe’s been holding Max together the way she’s done since they were tiny, been her lifeline, been _Chloe_ , and it’s Max’s turn to be there for Chloe now, Chloe’s turn to have someone to shoulder her load.

Max takes them to the Portland Saturday Market to kick off their day, and she watches Chloe’s reaction with her breath held. Is this too hipster for Chloe? Is she into any of the wares these vendors are peddling? Is it somewhere that Rachel’s already taken her before – or would Rachel Amber even bother with a place like this?

Luckily for Max, Chloe takes to the market like a puppy on a beach. They’re barely two steps into the place and she’s already flitting from stall to stall, gawking at recycled art creations, smashing her nose into jellybean-scented candles, and hectoring some dude into letting her taste his microbrews. She barely stops to make fun of the fact that literally everything here is artsy-fartsy or hippie-dippie – or whatever the Chloe version of that expression is.

In fact, the only thing that draws bite from Chloe is this guy selling t-shirts that spell out words with the names of chemical elements. She points to one that reads _Ni Nj A_ and curls her lip at it. “Is this asshole for real?”

“What do you mean? You _like_ ninjas.”

Chloe coughs a sputter at her. “No, Max! Look at it!” Chloe keeps blinking and when Max still doesn’t catch on, her face starts turning red. “Dude! Nj? A? _Those aren’t real elements!_ ”

As much as Chloe won’t admit it anymore, the mathlete science jockey that she used to be is still somewhere inside her. And during times like this – when Chloe’s passion for science shines through the cracks of her wall – Max is reminded of those days when they’d hold study sessions in Chloe’s room, sunlight golden across their textbooks, the air electric every time Chloe learned a new fact about the world. The sight of it again, of the old Chloe making a cameo, feels like a warm blanket around Max’s heart.

But she can’t indulge in it too long because she has to pull Chloe away before she can start trouble with the t-shirt guy in defense of… chemistry’s honor.

Max steers Chloe to a technicolor candy stand because Chloe and candy never could say no to each other, and like clockwork, Chloe forgets about the chemistry faux pas. “This place is the fucking _bomb_ , Max!” she says, literally like a kid in a candy store. “Holy crap, is that a Pop Rocks lollipop? Holy crap, that’s a _Pop Rocks lollipop!_ ” She turns to Max and clasps her hands in a plea. “Will you let me buy one? _Pleasepleaseplease?_ ”

It feels so good to laugh. “You don’t have to ask me for permission, Chloe.”

Chloe gives her a skeptical eye. “Dude, you always have an opinion on what I feed my sweet tooth. Remember how much shit you gave me about that jawbreaker?”

“Well, it’s been almost a decade and have you even finished that thing?”

Something crosses Chloe’s face in a shadow, but it’s gone before Max can place it. “Whatever, that’s old news. Now it’s about making this stick of sugar pellets explode all up in my mouth!”

“Geez, when you put it that way…”

“ _Maaax._ ”

Max chuckles and gives Chloe a small shove. “Oh my god, stop whining.” She digs out her wallet, walks up to the vendor, and points to Chloe’s lollipops. “Two, please. One for me and one for the big baby.”

She feels herself flush when Chloe squeezes her from the side. “You rock so hard, Maximum Fun Factor.”

They end up gorging themselves on so much market food – kebabs, tacos, and what Chloe calls ‘artist-anal’ drinks – that neither of them really cares when lunchtime comes and goes. Chloe keeps zipping around, looking and commenting and sometimes poking things that are within easy reach, and Max tries to let the tension ease from her shoulders as she watches on. Seeing Chloe enjoy herself, her mind away from Arcadia Bay and all of its bullshit… Max wishes she could find something like this for Chloe every day, will it into existence for her if need be.

But that’d require her to be at least _somewhat_ stable in her own head and try as she might, she’s not there, she’s nowhere near. Not when she spots curiosity and wonderment and mirth splashing across Chloe’s face like a spotlight through the market crowds and her fingers itch to capture those moments, but her brain keeps the photographer inside her locked in a cage and makes a point to lose the key.

They make their way out of the market and stroll along the riverbank, taking in the brownstone views of Old Town Portland, and Max ekes out small talk while trying not to notice every shot she’s missing, all the buildings bursting with so much character that she’s committing a sin not capturing them. She does this until they’ve walked off all the food and Chloe decides she’s ready for dessert, and Max spins them off the main road down a side street towards Voodoo Donuts – see what all the fuss is about, maybe find some distraction from all the noise in her head. But when she tells Chloe where they’re headed, Chloe suddenly starts dragging her feet.

“What’s wrong?”

“No! Nothing!” Chloe says as her eyes dart everywhere before landing on a storefront across the street. “Oh, hey, check it out!” She waits for a car to pass and pulls Max over to the shop, where they peer in through the glass. “Look at the sick ink that dude’s getting!”

Max gives the tattoo a closer look. It’s a large, intricate piece on a man’s back and it _is_ nice from an objective standpoint – the design makes effective use of the skin as negative space and the artist has the triadic color scheme down to a science – but that’s not what catches her eye.

She finds herself drawn in, entranced by this tiny picture in the window display book. It’s probably just an afterthought in the parlor portfolio but suddenly Max finds it at the forefront of her mind.

“Chloe?” She feels Chloe turn to her after a few seconds. “How do you know when you want a tattoo?”

She doesn’t have to look to know Chloe’s eyes are saucers. “Uh, the fuck you talking about?”

Max isn’t sure how to answer, so instead she drifts into the shop, walks up to the display book, and glues herself to the picture again. Chloe steps up beside her a moment before a woman – someone with that combination of ink sleeves and black hair and pure confidence that just _screams_ ‘I’m a tattoo artist’ – approaches them.

“Pink butterfly kinda gal, huh?” the woman says.

“Actually, blue. Electric blue.” She catches Chloe gaping at her from the corner of her eye and pushes on. “It’s a very special color to me, and I love the symbolism of the butterfly.”

“Yeah, it’s a meaningful little thing. Stands for beauty, hope, transformation, all that good jazz.”

“Yes, and the idea of it breaking out of its cocoon – I feel like it also embodies a sense of freedom. Of hard-earned freedom.”

“That it does, girl.” The woman reaches out her hand. “Raven. Looks like I’ll be your tattoo artist today.”

“Whoa, Max, hold up.” Chloe stomps a boot in front of her. “Are you seriously about to do what I think you’re about to do?”

Max gives it some thought. Nothing about her life right now, or even who she is right now, deserves the brand of a butterfly. Without her powers, she’s turned back into that coward she wanted to leave behind in Seattle – and worse, she’s dragging Chloe down with her. Chloe deserves to be held and nurtured by someone who’s strong enough to be her rock, but the way things are, Max feels more like a leech.

But she needs something to work towards. She needs a reminder – on those days when she’s sick of being shackled to her memories, when she hates herself for the dust that’s collecting on her camera, when she sees how far Kate has come and she can’t be sure she has the strength to get there herself – that maybe she just hasn’t emerged yet. That maybe there’s more to her than just this pathetic worm of a girl, that there’s still hope for her to be the person she wants to be, who Chloe needs her to be. She needs to believe that she can break free of her cocoon someday.

She needs this.

“Listen, Chloe, I don’t want to waste any of your birthday weekend doing something that’s not for you–”

“You doof, it’s not about that.” Chloe presses her hands on Max’s shoulders. “Are you _sure_ you wanna get a tattoo? Like, you’re not just doing this because you think it’ll impress me, right?”

“Feel free to get over yourself any time,” Max says with a smirk. “I actually want it for totally different reasons. Totally legit reasons.”

“And your smartass self is positive about this?”

“She’s positive.”

“One hundred percent?”

“One _thousand_.”

“Well, then. Who’m I to stand in the way of a girl and her first tat?” Chloe lets go of her and turns around. “Yo, Raven.”

“Yes’m.”

“Give my girl here the best butterfly you’ve got. And _be gentle._ ”

 

* * *

  

Yeah, this whole situation might all be on Chloe. But in her defense, she couldn’t _possibly_ have predicted shit would go down like this.

It only started as a bad diversion tactic to avoid sugar-glazed Rachel memories at Voodoo Donuts – especially because Rachel was always able to flirt her way to the front of the line at that tourist trap, whereas Max and Chloe would actually have to _wait_ like three hours. But that has somehow, for some reason the idiot cosmos decided is perfectly logical, ended up with Max in an InkBed.

Chlole can’t decide if it’s totally weird or totally badass.

Probably both. Definitely both.

The idea of it takes some getting used to, but when she sees the butterfly start to take shape on Max’s right ankle, she gets pretty stoked that Max suddenly grew an inner punk. But the ankle is a god-awful place for a starter tat and Max has crappy pain tolerance to begin with, so Chloe has to take her out for air every ten minutes or so. By the time it’s finally done and they’re out of Raven’s hair, the sky’s turned dark and they’re both drained.

“You can’t be tired yet,” Max says with a wince. She winces every time her right leg hits the ground, which is every other step. “We still have so much to do.”

“Priorities, Max. Your ankle okay?”

“Yeah…” she says with another wince.

“Dude, you really should’ve listened to me. The ankle is one of the most painful places to get a tattoo. It’s all bone and shit.”

Max casts her eyes down and says in a voice that Chloe can barely hear, “But it means something to me.”

Now that she mentions it, Chloe does remember something weird about Max’s nightmares. Whenever she’s thrashing around, it’s always her right leg that moves the most. Chloe decides not to press more and asks instead, “Are you happy with it, at least?”

“I better be. Last I checked, you can’t return a tattoo – not even for store credit.”

Chloe gives Max a light shove, then has to grab onto her as she lands on her bum foot and starts to fall over. When Chloe yanks her back to balance, she’s a little surprised that Max uses this opportunity to lean in and sneak an arm around her waist. It’s getting near-impossible to deny this dance they’ve been doing – how for months they’ve been edging towards something more than friendship – but Max is never the one to make a move. She always waits for Chloe to give her an opening, and even then, her only actions are reactions.

Which probably explains why they’re still just friends, but… If they both want this, maybe Chloe should quit being such a wuss about it. Right?

She slings her arm around Max’s shoulder and does her best not to let their closeness scare her. “So,” she says to focus on something other than the way Max’s fingertips are resting on her hip. “Where to next? I, uh, assume you’re still not down for bar-hopping?”

“We don’t even have IDs!” Max shifts her hand and her thumb grazes Chloe’s skin under her hoodie, and Chloe swears to god Caulfield is doing this shit on purpose. The contact leaves a trail of fire along Chloe’s waist, and she has to cough to hide the hitch in her breath. “Are you cold?” Max asks way too innocently – the sly bastard.

“N- nah.” Chloe wants to smack herself for the crack in her voice. She clears her throat and tries to be a little less lame. “No, I’m good. Just wanna know where we’re headed, s’all, seeing as you’re suddenly too cool for underage drinking.”

“You’re such a dweeb.” Max takes out her phone, pulls up Kate’s texts from earlier, and runs her eyes down the list until she comes across something that gets her so excited she does a one-legged hop. “Oh my dog! I’ve got it!”

“You’ve got the world’s dorkiest vocabulary?”

“No, ass.” She pinches Chloe’s side and Jesus fucking Christ this isn’t even fair. “I know where we should go!”

Max taps something into Google Maps and pulls Chloe into a limp-run for four blocks until they see this pirate statue under a black flag. It’s glowing all sorts of pinks and greens in the dark of night and its hook hand points at Chloe and Max in a ‘come hither’ curl. Drunk college kids stumble out from the doors behind it and laugh like obnoxious pricks, but that only piques Chloe’s interest more.

She walks up to the statue and glides a hand along its captain’s hat. It’s an exact replica of the one she had as a kid – right down to the off-white trim – and seeing this thing in front of her now feels like running into a long-lost friend. “Max, I don’t know where the shit you’ve taken me,” she says as she touches a finger to the skull on the statue’s hat, “but I am sold.”

“Yarr, I knew ye would be,” Max says, then looks like she half-expects Chloe to give her crap about being such a dork.

But Chloe can’t bring herself to make fun of Max right now – not when all she wants to do in this moment is be Captain Bluebeard and Long Max Silver again. No trauma, no loss, _no_ _bullshit_ – just the Scourge of Arcadia Bay and her first mate taking over the world like they used to when they were girls.

Or, at least, taking over glow-in-the-dark underground mini-golf, as Max informs her when they go in.

“This place kicks so much fucking ass!” Chloe says as they spiral down the staircase and gawk at all the blacklight pirate art. There’s skulls, cutlasses, sirens, _buried treasure_ – Chloe’s pretty sure she’s died and gone to Davy Jones’s Locker. “And I _love_ the name.”

“‘Glowing Greens’,” Max says with a wink. “Of course you’d like it.”

“You bet your sweet ass,” she says, and even in the dark Max’s ears look a little more pink. They get to the bottom floor and get in line behind these Gates-Of-Hell-looking things, pikes and skeletons sticking out of it. “Did you seriously find out about this place from Kate? I can’t imagine her coming here.”

“She said she’s never been, but when I asked her to help me think of places to take you, she came up with this immediately.” The group in front of them gets their clubs and they’re one step closer to the genius combination of mini-golf, phosphorescence, and fucking _pirates_. “She said from what she knows about you, she thought you’d love it.”

Chloe laughs. “You know what? Kate Marsh fucking rules.”

“She fucking does.” Max hesitates a second before stepping into Chloe and burying herself in Chloe’s chest. “And so do you, Chloe Price.” She can feel Max’s heart speed up against her body. “Happy birthday.”

When they’re this close and Max’s hair smells this good, Chloe’s just about powerless. She softens against Max and they hold each other for a second longer than they usually do, then another second, and another, and she knows they’ve finally passed that point of no return, that she’s trespassed into territory she really shouldn’t. They pull back and their eyes meet – Max’s are nervous and questioning – and it’s out of sheer dumb luck that the cashier calls them for their turn. As they jump apart, Chloe spots the disappointment on the quirk of Max’s lips and she recognizes the feeling in herself, but she wonders what it means that she also feels kind of relieved.

 

* * *

 

Max has one thing on the brain: the butterfly, the butterfly, the butterfly, the butterfly.

Maybe it’s pathetic that she always needs to draw courage from external sources, but it’s working right now and she’s not about to spoil that. As she and Chloe play through their 18 holes and Chloe’s mind keeps being blown by all the glowing pirate paraphernalia, Max trains her focus on her new tattoo. It’s a symbol of change, of transformation, and what better time to stop being her spineless self than now?

At every hole, she manages to work up the guts and find different ways to get closer to Chloe, to make Chloe drop her guard and flirt back. Because if they both stop being dumb children for a single second, maybe they can finally admit how much they both want this – how much she wants to be with Chloe, and how much she thinks Chloe wants to be with her, too.

So she keeps brushing her hand against Chloe’s, or standing too close to Chloe, or even leaning her head on Chloe, and with each touch Max can sense them melting more and more into each other. By the time they get to the 18th and they finally sink their shots, they’re holding hands like they’re on an actual date – their fingers playing and caressing in a way they’ve never done in the millions of times they’ve held hands since they were kids.

They keep hold of each other as they return their clubs and leave Glowing Greens, all feather touches and tracing shapes and loaded silences as they wend their way up the stairs, slow steps stretching the moment taut. But when they resurface on the street and an early-spring breeze sweeps a chill over them, Chloe drops Max’s hand like the cold air just washed away a spell.

“Oof, I’m so beat.” Chloe makes a show of stretching but it’s a little too deliberate. “Let’s head back to the hotel, whaddaya say?”

Max feels her pulse jump; she’s not ready to let this night end yet. Chloe may not be under a spell anymore but the magic is not over for Max, only pumps stronger for Max.

“Hey. You okay?” Chloe waves a hand in front of Max’s face, and all Max can think about is how warm that hand would feel against her skin. “Shit, is it your ankle?” No, it’s not her ankle that’s aching. Not even close. But she wants it to stop, she wants to stop aching for Chloe, for them to stop aching for each other. Don’t they deserve to be happy together? “Ah, fuck. We shouldn’t have played that long if–”

She presses her lips against Chloe’s, _the butterfly the butterfly the butterfly,_ and she doesn’t let herself back away. She stays still, and Chloe stays still, and their lips stay resting until they’re moving with each other, against each other, in perfect synchrony because they’re Max-and-Chloe and everything they do is perfect. Everything they do is power, love, strength, fate, and kissing Chloe feels like coming home, like being safe, and for the first time in her life Max thinks she’s tasting destiny.

  

* * *

 

Max tastes like strawberry lip balm and there are a few moments when Chloe feels like she’s about to lose herself in this girl. But then she feels these sharp tugs against her stomach, and everything starts to go wrong. Her heart and her body are thundering for Max but her mind trips on a memory, and suddenly Max’s lips start to turn sour. They start to taste like cigarettes and cheap liquor and skunk weed, like tears and bile and Prozac. Like the emptiness of unanswered texts and forgotten birthdays, like nights spent loathing herself for being so unlovable, and suddenly she hears Rachel’s voice in her ear.

“What happens if Max pulls away first?”

_So what?_

“What happens if Max leaves again?”

_Will she?_

“What happens when Max ditches you like she did when you were just a kid with a dead dad and she knew how much you needed her?”

_She wouldn’t._

“Don’t be so sure. I won’t be around to keep you from fading this time. Can you go through that again? Can you survive?”

_Can I?_

She has no answer for Rachel or for herself and it feels like a pit opened up under her feet. Before it can swallow her whole, she has to push Max away and struggle for air. She watches as Max’s eyes flutter open, watches as they turn from surprise to concern to fear, to the moment when Chloe knows she just broke her best friend’s heart.

“Shit, Max–”

“Oh my god, Chloe, I’m so sorry.” There’s a thickness in Max’s voice as she turns away. “I just- I thought… Oh my god.” She covers her hands over her face. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

“Max, no.” Chloe tries to turn her back around but she refuses. When Chloe sees her shoulders quiver, she takes a step back and forces herself to give Max her space. “Max…”

“It’s alright, it’s okay.” Max’s words are unsteady.

“It’s not, though.” Chloe wants to reach out a hand but forces it to stay down; she’s done enough damage as it is.

“Really, it’s fine.” Max runs a sleeve across her eyes and turns skyward for a long breath. “Honestly. I promise.”

Excruciating silence falls between them and Chloe knows how hurt Max is, knows how to fix it – how much she _wants_ to hold her and kiss her and fix it for her – but she also knows she can’t. She wants to explain herself but wouldn't the truth only drive them further apart?

She stays quiet and lets Max decide their next step because it’s the least, the _absolute pathetic least_ Chloe can do. After long moments have passed and strangers start giving them looks, Max sighs and says, “Hotel’s this way.”

 

* * *

 

The smoke detector in their room emits a steady green hue and Max finds her gaze drawn to it like a moth – although it’s not like there’s a whole lot of other stuff she can look at here. Peeling wallpaper, empty nightstand, the end. If Max wants to entertain herself with better sights, she’d have to turn to Chloe’s side of the bed. And she’d really rather avoid doing that if she has a choice.

Max blames herself. For everything. For flirting with Chloe, for making Chloe flirt back, for thinking she was being brave when that damn butterfly was really just about being selfish. It’s all her fault that she pushed Chloe into something she clearly wasn’t comfortable with – because if Chloe _was_ comfortable, why wouldn’t she have gone for it already? Because she didn’t get a stupid tattoo on her ankle like Max did?

So. Fucking. _Stupid._

She breathes a bitter chuckle against the pillow. It’s also her fault for booking a room with only one bed, which means it’s _also_ her fault that this is the most awkward she’s ever felt in her own skin. And that’s saying something.

“Max?” Chloe’s voice comes quiet and gentle from behind her, like it’s weighed down by guilt. She shouldn’t have to feel that way – not for this, not for any of this.

Max stays silent and pretends to sleep so that maybe Chloe can stop worrying about her. But that’s not how Chloe works.

“Max, I know you’re awake.”

This marks one of the few times she wishes Chloe didn’t know her so well. She makes herself roll around to face Chloe and tries to mask her heartbreak with a smile. “Hey. What’s up?”

The blue of Chloe’s hair plays against the silver of the moon and the picture she paints sends shards through Max’s chest. Chloe doesn’t speak for a moment – and Max starts to wonder if she’s doing this just to torment her, to remind her of what she can’t have – but then she says, “It’s not that I don’t want to.”

“Okay?” She doesn’t know what to say to that. She’s not surprised to hear it, but it still hurts like hell.

“And… it’s not what you think.”

“What do I think?”

Chloe moves her hand a little like she wants to touch Max but something stops her, like this new chasm between them has taken on a physical form. “You think it’s because of Rachel.”

Ding ding ding. But Max doesn’t want to think about that. She feels like enough of an asshole as it is; she doesn’t want to deal with the added moral shittitude of being jealous of a dead girl.

“Max.”

“What?” She hears the anger in her voice and it’s not directed at Chloe. She wants to tell her that, but she’s not sure she can without completely losing it.

“Trust me. It’s not Rachel.”

Max finds that hard to believe, but when she searches Chloe’s face, she knows she’s telling the truth. Though what the other side of that truth is, what the reason Chloe pushed her away was, she’s not sure she wants to hear.

“I know it’s not fair to you…”

“It’s not about fair or unfair, Chloe.”

“No, it is.” Chloe’s hand finally crosses the distance and finds Max’s, and Max despises herself for still deriving hope from this meaningless bit of contact. “Look, I think… I just think I’m not ready, okay?”

She chews on that for a moment. “Can I ask why?”

Chloe sighs into the space between them and Max can still remember the feel of her lips. It’s torture to think about, but she can’t stop. “It’s a trust thing.”

“Oh.” That eases the bite of rejection a little, but it throws a different punch her way. Five years of radio silence, of Chloe feeling abandoned and betrayed, and it’s – once again – all Max’s fault. They’re not together because Chloe doesn’t know how to trust her, and _that’s Max’s fault_. There’s nothing she can say now to undo all the damage she did in Chloe’s life; she can’t even tell her the truth because the truth is nothing but a grand excuse, and Chloe deserves more than to have her pain be dismissed with an excuse.

“I’m sorry, Max.”

“Don’t be. Seriously.” She squeezes Chloe’s fingers and ignores the ache that fills her gut. “I understand. I understand completely. And _I’m_ sorry.”

Chloe doesn’t respond. They stare at each other across the foot of mattress separating them, and Max is sure Chloe’s dying to say more just like she is. But not a word comes out of either of them for the rest of the night.

They fall asleep with their fingers still touching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't kill me! I promise things get (marginally) better next chapter. They, um, get significantly worse first (because me), but our girls do land in a better place very soon!
> 
> Thanks as always to rob_lentz and u/nadvolk for all their help!
> 
> Comments are my fave but feel free to leave whatever you think is appropriate =)
> 
> (Also, full credit to Homer Simpson for 'artist-anal'.)


	5. Destruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recap of last chapter:
> 
> * Chloe and Max go to Portland for Chloe's birthday weekend, where things start out great. Max even gets a tattoo - a blue butterfly on her right ankle.
> 
> * Max and Chloe go mini-golfing and things get so intimate between them that Max goes in for a kiss. Chloe kisses back for a little bit until she hears Rachel remind her of all of the hurt Max has caused her and has yet to provide an explanation for.
> 
> * Max feels rejected but Chloe assures her that it's not for a lack of desire. Chloe comes clean that she has trust issues with Max, which Max blames herself for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Warning:* Major conflict ahead (but also resolution so don't worry!).
> 
> And I promise this is the last tear-down of their relationship I'm doing =)

Hearts get broken all the time. Max has seen it happen. People break up, someone dumps someone, someone cheats on someone, someone rejects someone – it’s literally an everyday occurrence, and the Earth has never stopped spinning because of it.

That’s what she has to remind herself as she sits at her desk trying to get a jump on her math homework but ends up doodling broken heart emojis instead. She gives her head a hard shake; she doesn’t want to be cliché and stupid about this. No matter how shitty she might feel, her world is still there and her life is still happening. Even Chloe’s still sticking around despite everything that went down.

She decides to forget math for now and texts Chloe that she’s done with homework for the night. When Chloe texts back that she’ll be over soon, Max wonders if it’s a dumb idea that she and Chloe are still sleeping over every night. They’ve learned to blunt the awkwardness to a minimum, but there are still moments when Max catches herself replaying her words or regretting her choices, and there are still moments when she sees Chloe’s gaze drop with guilt. In those moments, it’s as if Max’s heart is being stretched like an old balloon and if she has to feel even just _one more thing_ , she’ll burst and everything that’s ever kept her afloat will leak away.

Yikes. Has she always been this melodramatic?

From her window, she can see it’s a nice spring evening, and the courtyard benches are calling for her to come be morose on them. She starts to head out of the dorms to wait for Chloe, but when she gets past the bathrooms, she sees Trevor and Dana pretzeled around each other outside Dana’s room. Envy twists at her gut – she wonders if she’d have an easier time finding that kind of happiness if she was a gorgeous cheerleader too – but she shoos away those thoughts because Dana’s more than a just pretty face, and that’s hardly the reason Chloe doesn’t want to be with her.

She sighs and tries to sneak past Dana and Trevor's tonsil hockey exhibition, but Dana spots her, like always.

“Oh, Max! Hey, c’mere!”

Why can’t she be invisible to Dana like she is to everyone else? “Hi, Dana. Hi, Trevor.” Trevor nods at her, his hair all make-out messy and his eyes still lovestruck, and it makes Max irrationally angry.

“Oh my god, you’ll never guess what,” Dana says with too much pep.

“You’re probably right, so maybe you can just tell me.” Max doesn’t mean to sound so rude and regrets it immediately, but Dana – bless her soul – is immune to Max’s snark. Or maybe Max just doesn’t know how to deliver snark.

“So, okay.” Dana takes Trevor by the hand and straightens herself like she has an announcement to make, and… Oh, no. Did Dana get herself into trouble again? “Like, we weren’t expecting this to happen, but…” She and Trevor both grin wildly and Max starts really worrying for them. “Trev and I got into Whitman together!”

It takes a second for her brain to register that Whitman isn’t code for teen-pregnant-married, but the name of a college.

Max lets a groan whir in her chest. Why did they have to bring up college, of all things? And on a day when her nerves are already so frayed they're about one blow away from snapping?

“Congratulations, you guys,” she says with what she hopes is a decent imitation of excitement. “I’m really happy for you.”

“Thanks, man,” Trevor drawls through his grin. “I never thought getting college letters could be, like, fun.”

Dana bounces, _actually bounces_ in Trevor’s arms. “I know, right!” She homes her gaze on Max. “What about you?” she asks like it’s her business. “You never finished telling me where you applied to.”

“I…” Max forces out enough air to fake a chuckle. “Guess I’d rather keep it a secret for now.”

Dana narrows her eyes. “That’s kinda weird, Max,” she says, and Max knows it’s coming from a place of concern but she can feel her temper start to rumble. Though Dana seems to pick up on it and changes the subject. “Well anyway, did you hear about Victoria?”

Max slaps some more plaster on her smile to make sure it doesn’t flake away like her patience. “No, I didn’t.”

“She got into SVA Manhattan!”

And just like that, the plaster shatters. “SV…” Max lets herself catch her breath before asking, “As in The School of Visual Arts?”

As in Max’s dream school?

The dream school that she never applied to because she never put together a portfolio?

“The very same! I know it used to be in-vogue to hate on her and stuff, but she deserves some good news these days. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah. Totally.” Of course Victoria deserves some good news. If she worked hard enough to get past all the trauma Jefferson caused, was strong enough, _determined_ enough to get to a point Max couldn’t get to, then of course she deserves some good news.

Unlike Max.

“So,” she hears Trevor say and decides to stop him before he can ask more questions she can’t answer.

“Sorry, guys. I have to get going,” she says, and spins on her heel. She can feel their gaze – worried and probably a little offended – on the back of her head, so she picks up her pace and makes her way out of the dorms. She waits for the door to click shut behind her, like the lock will keep the thoughts of college from following her.

But she’s kidding herself if she thinks her brain will let her off that easy.

Her feet start taking her through the courtyard, steps both deliberate and aimless, as she braces for her to mind work itself into a froth. For the unavoidable truths to spiral, crush against each other, twist together into those grotesque voices she tries so hard to keep at bay. It’s March and she’s avoided checking her mailbox for months now, and why? So she wouldn’t have to face letters from her Common App colleges – colleges she doesn’t want to go to but doesn’t want to get rejected from, either? So she can run away from the fact that she’s too chickenshit to get over her _ridiculous_ fears and compile a portfolio, apply to actual art schools, pursue her so-called dreams? Because they are ridiculous – her fears. If she can’t even bring herself to sift through her dumb selfies for an application, let alone take more pictures, then what is she even doing? How can she even call herself a photographer when photography is the last thing she wants to think about anymore?

God, she’s become such a fucking disaster. And it’d be great if she could pin the blame entirely on Jefferson, but she can't. Because if she’s being honest with herself, this particular shitshow has all the looks of a Max Caulfield original.

Victoria’s life doesn’t exactly look this way.

Max hears Chloe’s boots stomping into the courtyard, so she takes a moment to rearrange herself. Not that she wants to hide anything from Chloe – or _could_ hide anything from Chloe – but that’s another can of worms she’s not ready to open. This whole year she’s had this hazy vision of college being her and Chloe sharing some off-campus shoebox, living off god-knows-what but still sticking together. Always together.

But with everything that’s happened between them, should she ask Chloe to come with her anymore? Would Chloe say yes?

Where would they even go?

“Evenin’, hippie!” Chloe calls from across the way, still far enough for Max to shove her thoughts under a rug. “Whachu doing out here all by yourself?”

Max puts on a smile. “Waiting for you, of course. Thought maybe you could use a bodyguard.”

Chloe catches up to her and they head towards the dorms together. “I mean, I wouldn’t mind some protection from all this Blackwell nerdiness, but you’re not exactly the right woman for the job.”

“Ha ha,” Max says and tries to think of a comeback, but it’s hard when her brain keeps lifting the rug and letting her thoughts creep out. Chloe’s spent the better part of a year propping her up, weathering Max’s storm just to help Max find solid ground. What would she think if she finds out that she wasted all that effort just so Max can torpedo her own future?

They’re almost to Max's room and she doesn’t realize they’ve been silent this whole time until Chloe speaks. “Hate to ask this, buuut…”

“Buuut?”

Chloe pauses and looks a little unsure as she says, “You sure you want me here?”

It’s not an unfounded question but it still takes Max by surprise. Far as she can tell, nothing’s changed between them; tonight’s no different from any of the other awkward-to-heartbreaking nights they’ve spent together since Portland. “What do you mean?”

“You just, I dunno, seem quieter than normal. Like, even for…” Chloe scratches at her neck. “Y’know.”

“Of course I want you here, Chloe.” Max tries to give a casual shrug. “I just have a lot on my mind with school.”

Chloe eyes her for a moment. “If you say so.”

“I say so.” She turns her key in the lock and starts to push the door open when Chloe stops her.

“Whoa, hang on.” Chloe puts a hand on the doorknob. “Let’s not go in there yet.”

“Um, why?”

“You got shit on your mind, right? Let’s fix that and go do something fun!”

Max feels herself sag. “It’s a school night, Chloe. I don’t think I should be getting into shenanigans right now.”

“Okay, dorkmeister.” Chloe puts up one hand and signs a cross on her chest with the other. “No _‘shenanigans’_ , I swear.”

“Why do I still have a bad feeling about this?”

“Cuz you worry too damn much. Now c’mon.” Chloe waggles her brows. “Let’s go get our wee on.”

Max blinks. “Let’s _what?_ ”

“Go play some Wii!” Chloe pulls her by the shirtsleeve and leads them back down the hallway. “I know you nerds have it stashed somewhere in the common room. I used to _own_ Steph Gingrich’s ass in Bowling back in the day.”

Max lets herself be pulled along and forces a smile. Regardless of all the other crap going on in her life, at least Chloe’s still here. And there’s unspeakable comfort in that. “Wow. This Steph person must’ve really sucked.”

 

* * *

 

Chloe manages to get a few actual laughs out of Max as they make doofy little Miis of themselves, but the good vibes don’t last very long. By the time they start up a game of Bowling, Max starts to zone out and her eyes get all vacant again. Chloe decides that she’ll let Max win if it helps cheer her up – although they’re not even three rounds in when she realizes, shit, she’s not _letting_ Max win; Max is straight-up kicking her ass. And it doesn’t even look like she’s trying.

“Damn, hippie,” Chloe says as she winds up a throw. “I don’t remember you being so good at this.”

Max gives her a polite chuckle, the kind her parents like so much, and Chloe can’t explain it but it irks her to no end.

She releases the ball and it soars straight to the gutter. “Gah! Fuck you, ball!” She flips a finger at the TV as she waits for another ball to roll up. “Ah, well. Second time’s the charm, right?”

“Yeah,” Max says from a thousand miles away.

“Dude, I’m so gonna get a strike this time,” she says to try and get some kind of response as she takes another wind-up, dramatic and one-eyed. “You’re not gonna know what hit you.”

The polite chuckle happens again and, okay, that’s gotta stop. Chloe lets her arm drop and the ball plops to the ground without scoring her a point. “Max.”

“Hm.”

“What’s up with you?”

Max turns her gaze to Chloe and seems almost surprised to see her. “Oh. Sorry, I must’ve zoned out.”

Chloe snorts. “I’ll say. Question is, why?”

Max lets out this I’m-too-old-for-this-body kind of sigh and sits down on the sofa.

“Dude, talk to me,” Chloe says, then realizes maybe she’s not the person Max wants to talk to; maybe she’s the person Max wants to talk _about._ “Or, uh, if it’s not me you wanna talk to, I’d totally get it… I just–”

“It’s not that, Chloe.” Max leans back on the sofa and fiddles with her hands.

“Then what is it?” Chloe asks as she lowers herself to her heels, eyes level with Max’s. Max looks so small, so deflated, and Chloe hates herself again for what she did to her best friend. What she’s still doing.

“Promise you won’t freak out?” Max asks on an exhale, like she’s been holding her breath.

“Yeah, sure,” Chloe says without thinking.

“It’s about college.”

Wait. _College?_

The word doesn’t make sense right away but it still rings inside Chloe’s skull like a punch to the head. A few seconds pass before she’s able to process what it means. For Max. For them. For her.

When Max keeps talking, something grips Chloe’s stomach like claws.

“I… I don’t know what I’m gonna do next year.”

What she’s gonna do next year? What does she mean by that? Chloe stands up and crosses her arms, the Wii remote jabbing into her ribs.

“I mean, I know I have to go to college – no way my folks will let me do anything else, and I _want_ to go to college, but…”

But what? But _what?_ But she doesn’t want to leave Chloe behind? But she’s finally back now and she’s not going to leave Chloe behind ever again? Chloe tightens her arms across her chest and braces for the answer, the truth. _But fucking what?_

“But I’m not sure if I even wanna go to any of the schools I applied to.”

Her arms tingle as she drops them to her side, because yeah, of course. Of course Chloe’s not in the equation, of course she’s not part of Max’s disappearing act. What was she expecting? What was she _thinking?_ She swallows and it feels like daggers in her throat. “Big fucking whoop.”

Max’s face flashes with something and Chloe takes a moment to read it. Surprise, anger, and the look that says she’s sick and tired of Chloe’s crap, just like everyone else. That’s what Chloe sees. That’s what Max feels about her. Max lets out an “Excuse me?” like she’s offended. Like she has the fucking right to be offended.

“I said big fucking whoop, traitor.”

“Chloe!”

“What? What, Max?” Rage prickles at her skin as she throws her hands in the air. “Oh sorry, were you looking for sympathy from me?”

“What the hell?” Max rises to her feet. “I was maybe looking for my friend, but… What the _fuck?_ ”

“Oh, your friend!” Chloe fires a chuckle and she know it’s wrapped in flames but she can’t bring herself to give a shit. “The friend who’s so conveniently here right now because she _happens to live_ in the same town as your precious school? The friend you’re just gonna ditch again when you move on to your next precious school?”

“I’m not _ditching_ you! You would… I’d want you to come with me! Of course I’d ask you to come with me!”

“Great! How very gracious of you to invite me along as a fucking afterthought!”

“Af–” Max drops her voice to a low tremble. “Are you seriously implying–”

“No, I’m not implying shit. I’m _saying_ it. Because I have the balls to be honest, unlike somebody I know.”

“That’s rich!” Max steps up to Chloe and Chloe takes a step back. “You keep everything bottled up inside and you refuse to let me in. No matter how hard I try, you pretend like you’re okay and you never let me in. How is that ‘having the balls to be honest’?”

“You wanna know why I don’t open up to you? Because _this._ ” She points to the distance between them. The void. The space where Max acts like there’s a red thread but now they know it’s just dead air. “Because why the fuck should I let you in when you’re just gonna take off on me again?”

“Oh my god, I’m not ‘taking off’ on you!” Max takes another step closer and it forces Chloe to back away again. “This isn’t fair! Me going to college is not me _taking off_ on you!”

“Bullshit. Bull _shit!_ ” Chloe knows she’s yelling now and they can probably hear her all the way in the courtyard, but she doesn’t care. “You’re leaving again, you _always_ _knew_ you were just gonna leave again, so why would you- why did you- _FUCK!_ ” She hurls the remote against the wall and is glad as hell to see it shatter.

“God damn it, Chloe.” Max’s hands ball up into little fists. “You promised you weren’t gonna freak out.”

“Yeah, well, I lied! So I guess that makes us _both_ liars!”

“Will you please stop for a second and listen to what you’re saying?”

“I know _exactly_ what I’m saying!” Chloe spins on her heel, swipes her keys from the coffee table, and bolts for the door. “I’m saying I’m done with this shit, Max Caulfield. I’m fucking _done!_ ”

“Chloe!”

She hears Max give chase after her, so she picks up her pace. Max doesn’t keep up with her long strides but she keeps shouting from behind as they barrel out of the dorms.

“Holy _shit_ , Chloe, will you please just stop!”

“No! Fuck off!”

“ _Chloe!_ ”

“Fuck. _Off!_ ”

When she pushes through the doors she sees that kid Warren standing in front of her, and he barely jumps out of her way in time. “Move!” Chloe yells as she blows past him but when he starts calling to Max from behind them, it makes her turn around, makes her want to breathe fire on the both of them. “That’s right, Max! Go off with loverboy! Go to college together and make college babies with him and _leave me the fuck behind like you were always going to anyway!_ ”

Max starts shouting more things, about how that doesn’t make sense and it’s not fair and it’s _her_ she wants and she damn-well knows it, but Chloe tears away and makes a run for her truck. Because it doesn’t matter what Max has to say anymore.

The only thing that matters is that Max can’t leave her again if she leaves Max first.

 

* * *

 

Fury builds in Max’s chest like a volcano and now all she wants to do is explode. At Chloe, at herself, at Jefferson, at the world, at _everything_ because _nothing_ was supposed to be this way.

They were never supposed to leave each other again. How could Chloe not see that?

Warren catches up to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, but she whips around so fast it flies off. “Not _now,_ Warren.”

“Whoa! Chill, Max.” He recoils and nurses his hand like it’s burned. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m not,” she says. She doesn’t want to hurt him because he doesn’t deserve it, but if there’s anything she’s learned this past year, it’s that what someone deserves and what happens to them have _nothing_ to do with each other. “I’m not okay. And there’s only one person who can fix that right now and it’s not you. In fact, you've just made it worse, so _please. Not. Now. Warren._ ”

But the thing about hurting someone when they don’t deserve it is that it makes you a fucking asshole, and it's clear from the look on Warren’s face that that's what Max has become.

“Geez, can’t a guy try and be a good friend?” He gives her one more glance – even when he’s mad there’s more concern in his eyes than anger – before he slinks away from her.

She stares after him and _fuck,_ she doesn’t understand anything anymore. What happened to her? How did she get here, become _this person,_ end up with _this life?_ She looks down at her palms for reasons she can’t explain and all she sees is destruction. She’s the tornado of her visions, and if she keeps going down this path, she’ll wreck everything she knows, hurt everyone she loves.

No. No way.

Not gonna happen.

She races through the courtyard and into the dorms but veers off her usual path and onto the boys’ floor. It’s one thing if her life has become something she doesn’t recognize; she’ll be damned if she lets _herself_ become someone she doesn’t recognize.

Warren’s standing outside his door when she turns the corner.

“Warren!” She sees the surprise as he looks up at her. “Warren, wait.”

“Oh. What up, Max?” he says in his brave-face voice. “Haven’t come to yell at me some more, have you?”

“I am so, so sorry about that.”

He shrugs. “It’s cool.”

“No, it’s not.” She takes a breath. “It was so wrong how I acted back there, and…”

“Seriously. It’s all good.” He puts a hand on her shoulder again and looks at her like he understands everything, actually _gets it_ in his own Warren way. “I sorta overheard your fight with Chloe, and it sounds like you’re in a rough place right now.”

“You overheard us in the common room?”

“Not the specifics, but Chloe’s voice kinda carries,” he says with a sheepish little smirk, then gives her shoulder one more squeeze before taking his hand away. “But I did hear what you said to her outside just now, and, well…” He scratches the back of his head as his face turns thermometer-red. “I hope Chloe realizes how lucky she is.”

“I appreciate the words, Warren,” she says as she ignores the way her heart tightens at Chloe’s name, “but there’s a lot more to it than that.”

“Yeah, I figured there probably was.” He shoves his hands into his pockets and shuffles his Keds a little. “Do you, y'know, wanna talk about it?”

Max lets out a lungful of air. She does, she does want to talk, would love a shoulder to cry on, but she can't do that to Warren. It's no secret how he feels about her, and it'd be so unfair to talk to him about Chloe. He deserves better than that, Max needs to be better than that. She needs to stop being a burden and start finding her own legs. “Let's just hang out another day, okay? Maybe I can buy you a coffee to make up for being a megabitch back there, but right now I’d just really like some time to think.”

“Whatever you need, Max.” Even though there’s still a shade of sadness in his eyes, he gives her his best Warren smile.

“I don’t say this enough, but you really are an awesome friend, Warren.”

Warren seems to glow a little at that. “I guess I kinda am, huh?”

 

* * *

 

That night, Max lies awake in bed by herself for the first time in months. She checks her phone again and sees that Chloe still hasn’t called back.

She sends another text.

_What happened to us?_

She stares at the screen but gets no response.

_Chloe, I’m not leaving you. Ever._

No response.

_Please call me when you get this._

No response.

She puts her phone on Chloe’s side of the pillow and tries her best to fall asleep.

 

* * *

 

Chloe can’t remember what she for did the past two days. She has vague recollections of vodka and smoke and a shit-ton of yelling at Joyce. Or maybe she was being yelled at _by_ Joyce. Either way, it’s all a fucking blur of drinking more and feeling less, just the way she likes.

But on what she thinks is a Saturday, she wakes up with the urge to stay sober enough to drive. Maybe out of town for a bit. To a place she’s stayed away from for long enough.

She nurses her hangover until she’s functioning right again, then gets in her truck and makes her way north. When she pulls into the parking lot, she notices her phone hasn’t been going off like it did the past couple days. Not that it matters.

She gets out, climbs the hill, and walks right up to the ledge, and she’s floored by how different Overlook Park is now. The old trees are all gone, and the spot where The Tree used to stand is now just… ground. But it’s not as barren and depressing as she thought it’d be. For every plant she remembers being there, a new one’s sprung up to take its place. Maybe in a different area or in a different form, but the park isn’t the symbol of destruction she was expecting.

If anything, it’s a reminder that destruction leads to rebirth.

She sits down where the viewfinder – _their_ viewfinder – used to be.

“Pity they never replaced those, huh, Rach?”

Rachel pads up and lowers herself next to Chloe. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t realize viewfinders could burn.”

Chloe leans back until her head is resting on the grass. She stares straight ahead, up at the sky. She’s barely outside of town but the blue looks so different from here. “Well, I hope you’re happy.”

“Do you now?”

“I turned the tables on Max. Ditched her before she could do it to me again.” The wind rustles her hair. “Thought maybe you’d be proud.”

“Not exactly the word I’d use,” Rachel says, and Chloe shoots a glare up at her. “Why’d you choose the nuclear option? Drama’s _my_ thing. Your M.O. is to throw a tantrum and go right back to status quo.”

“First of all, fuck you for changing your tune. I thought you wanted to keep Max and me apart. You’ve done that, and now you’re making me question my choices?”

“Price.” Rachel looks down at her from where she sits. “You’re shitting me, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How are you still not getting this? I’m _dead_ , Chloe.” That word still feels like a bullet to the chest. “I don’t have wants, and I sure as shit ain’t feeling jealous.”

“So what the hell were all those ominous warnings about?”

“To keep you safe, idiot. Make sure you’re doing right by yourself for once.” Rachel shuffles closer. “You like Max.”

“Understatement.”

“So why are you so eager to give up on that?”

“Dunno.” She plucks a few blades of grass and waits for the breeze to flow before she loosens them downwind. “Scared.”

“Of?”

“Of her leaving again, duh.”

She waits for Rachel to respond, but Rachel just stares at her with that knowing look. Always with that knowing look.

“What?”

“Price.” _Always_ that knowing look.

“Don’t make me say it.”

“I’m making you say it.” And Chloe knows she’s already lost the battle. Rachel always knew how to get everything, _everything_ out of her. “What else are you scared of?”

“I’m…” She lets loose a long sigh. “I’m scared of dragging her down.”

“There it is.”

“Yeah, okay. No surprise there. I mean, look at me.” She gestures to her body but Rachel stays trained on her eyes. “What am I good for? Besides keeping Max from becoming the person she’s supposed to be? I did it to you – encouraged you to become a fuck-up like me because of my bullshit selfish needs, and… Fuck, Rach, maybe that’s what… If you’d never met me…” She wipes a sleeve across her eyes and waits until her breath is steady again. “I can’t do that to Max, too. I can’t let her life get Chloe Priced, too.”

“Whatever that means.” Rachel lies back next to Chloe, and suddenly they’re staring at clouds together again, like they did a thousand times before. Why does it have to feel so different now?

“You know what it means. Don’t play dumb.”

“I’m not playing anything except the voice of reason. You should try to understand that a little better.”

“Fuck off.”

“No chance.” A few beats pass between them before Rachel says, “You really tore her a new one the other night.”

“...I may’ve been a little harsh.”

“Just a touch.” Rachel’s tone is flat and it levels Chloe with shame. “So what did you think she was gonna do after high school?”

Chloe closes her eyes and breathes through the sting, the cloud of needles in her chest. “I don’t know. I honestly just… never even thought about it.”

Rachel snorts. “I could’ve guessed as much. That’s what you get for not letting me talk about her all those times.”

“What, you were trying to talk about Max’s future with me?”

“Trying to get you to think about it a little, yeah. Things were never just gonna stay the same no matter how much sand you shove your head into. At least if you gave it some thought, you wouldn’t’ve flipped shit like you did.”

“Okay, fine, whatever. Except the Rachel Amber I know would’ve never let me interrupt her.”

“The Rachel Amber you know.”

“Yeah. Her.” Chloe coughs to cover the hitch in her breath. “You don’t have to say it. I get it. You’re not her.”

“Sorry,” Rachel says, and there really is too much sympathy and softness in her voice to be _her_ Rachel. Her Rachel is gone. Like her dad. Like Max six years ago, like Max again in a few months. Shouldn’t Chloe be used to this by now? “So let’s say she does go off to college. Moves across the country and everything. Would you actually hate her?”

Chloe has to search for a while before finding an answer. “Remember what I said to you when we first met – about how I don’t want to be alone anymore?”

“Mhm.”

She lets out a sigh. “Maybe it’s time that changed. Maybe I should learn to be okay alone.”

“Wouldn’t that be easier if you hated Max? That way you wouldn’t have to miss her.”

She chuckles. “Doesn’t work like that and you know it. Besides, I can’t do that anymore.” She wipes at her eyes again. “I’m fucking… _tired_ of holding in so much hate all the time. Been like this for, what, six years? And look where that’s gotten me. Has it made any part of my life better, even a little bit?”

“What would you do without Max, though?”

“No fucking clue. All I know is: way I’m living right now – this isn’t a life. This is… me hanging onto life by a thread.”

Rachel doesn’t respond. She doesn’t need to.

“Something’s gotta give, Rach.” She gives up on the sleeve and lets the tears roll down either cheek. “I can’t go on like this.”

 

* * *

 

For two days, Max tells herself that Chloe just needs space, that all of her texts and calls have gone unanswered because Chloe needs time. Not because Chloe’s actually _done_ with her. That’s not possible, she repeats to herself. Chloe will be back. _Chloe will be back._

She tries not to let her world stop spinning as she waits, but there’s a voice that keeps niggling at her, telling that she’ll be waiting forever, that Chloe’s bailed on her for good and is never coming back. Max knows it isn’t true, but that voice gets so loud in her head sometimes that the only stability she’s able to find is in the little breaks she gets outside her own mind.

Like when she knocks over a beaker in Chem and the class has to evacuate while Mrs. Grant and Samuel contain the spill with sand. That distracts her from her thoughts for about three minutes.

Or when she sees Alyssa and Taylor form an unlikely team to defend Daniel from Logan’s posse. That gives her at least a minute of good feels.

Or when Warren takes her up on that coffee and he shows her videos of his mom’s new puppy, pink nose and fuzzy head and clumsy paws. That takes her to a better place for at least ten minutes.

And even when she finally works up the courage to open her mailbox and finds two college letters – a rejection from her dad’s alma mater and an acceptance to a school she has no interest in. At least that puts her in a sour mood over something other than Chloe.

She counts all of those as wins.

It’s harder when David’s around, because he gets this look on his face that tells her he blames her for whatever funk his step-daughter’s thrown herself into. But at least it means Chloe’s safe and still coming home; she knows David would’ve destroyed her if anything happened to Chloe because of her.

On Saturday, she wakes up and dreads the day because she doesn’t have classes to keep her occupied. She tries to milk her morning shower for all it’s worth – six seconds of distraction when she’s trying to squeeze out the last of her shampoo, three seconds when she has to shout across the curtain at someone using the faucet, and at least five seconds when she almost slips and smashes her head open.

But when she’s washed everything for the third time and her fingers have long since turned pruny, she makes herself turn off the shower. She steps out of the stall and finds Taylor waiting, tapping her foot and shooting impatient glances. Max apologizes as she walks past, and she thinks Taylor softens and compliments her tattoo.

“Thanks,” she answers. She hopes Taylor did say something; if she hadn’t, then Max was just caught talking to herself like a lunatic. Which would actually be a little bit funny.

Those thoughts didn’t involve losing Chloe either, so she chalks them up to a win as well.

When she’s back in her room and her hair’s been toweled dry and she’s put on an actual outfit, there’s nothing left to distract her anymore. Nothing to keep her mind from the phone on her pillow.

She touches the screen and it lights up to show… nothing. Of course.

She gives in and lets herself send some more texts because what does she have to lose at this point?

_Chloe._

_Please._

She stares at the thing with the same dead hope she’s been carrying around for two days. Then three dots appear on the other side of the screen, and her heart flies to her throat. Three little dots, looping in succession, one dot then two then three and back to one again, until words appear.

_parking lot_

And she’s tearing down the hall and out the door and through the courtyard and across campus before she has time to realize she’s not wearing shoes. But it doesn’t matter because she’s in the parking lot now and there she is, _there’s Chloe_ , sitting in her truck, blue head against the window, smoking a cigarette.

Still in her life.

Max walks up to the passenger’s side and Chloe leans over to push open the door. When she climbs in, Chloe flicks the last of her cigarette out the window.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

There’s a short stretch where neither of them says anything, and Chloe looks like she doesn’t know what to say, so Max blurts out, “How are you?”

Chloe gives a soft laugh. “I’m okay.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“Yup.”

They sink into silence again, which is everything Max doesn’t want because there’s so much to say, so much they _need_ to say. But Chloe gets there before her.

“Sorry I flew off the handle.”

“It’s okay. I get it.”

“Nah. I lost my cool and said some things that never should’ve been said.”

“Like me and Warren making babies?”

Chloe snorts. “Yeah. Like that.”

“That was kind of ridiculous.”

“Like I said: my bad.” Chloe drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “And I’m sorry I bailed on you.”

A little core of something shakes between Max’s ribs. “I’m just glad you’re here.” She angles herself towards Chloe.  “And I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Or at least I’m learning to be.” Chloe keeps her eyes on a spot on her windshield for a moment before saying, “I wasn’t trying to ghost you on purpose.”

Max believes her, although she wouldn’t have blamed her either way.

“I just needed some time to come to terms with shit.”

“Like what?”

Chloe finally turns to Max and her eyes look so tired, like she’s seen everything the world has to offer and she never wants to see any of it again. But there’s something solid in them, too – something stubborn and determined, something that has sharp edges turned inward. “You’re going to college,” she says. “That is a fact of life.”

“I…” The truth of Max’s reality sits like bile in her throat.

“You’re going to college, Max Caulfield. Because you deserve the best, and- and I’m not gonna get in the way of that with my bullshit neediness. I fucking refuse to.”

“Then come with me.” Max feels the tears threatening at her eyes and she knows that if she says things like this when she’s crying, it sounds like begging. But she doesn’t care. “You can come with me.”

Chloe shakes her head with a laugh and a sniff. “And do what? Be your pet curmudgeon and bark at all your friends?” She shakes her head again, harder this time. “Look at me, Max. Look at what a toxic influence I am.”

“Chloe, don’t–”

“Rachel was destined for great things, too. Just like you. But then she met me and…” She takes a sharp breath and the tremor in her voice starts to grow. “And look how that turned out. I’d only drag you down, and I can’t have that on my conscience, too. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that to you.”

The fury from three nights ago comes screaming back to her. “That’s… _such_ _bullshit._ ”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is!” Max leans in – she doesn’t know why, but if it can help make Chloe see reason then that’s all that counts. “You are _not_ responsible for what happened to Rachel Amber.”

Chloe hunches into herself like the weight of her life has finally crushed her, and Max can’t let that happen, not to Chloe.

“Chloe, no. You are _not_ the reason that… Jefferson did what he did. You need to know that. You can’t blame yourself for _any_ of it, do you hear me? You’re not–”

“But I am. _I am._ ” Chloe puts her hands to her face and Max never wants to see her cry like this again. She never wants to see Chloe feel like this again.

“You’re not.” She grabs Chloe’s hands, pulls them from her face, grips onto them. “Chloe, you are not. Look at me.” It takes Chloe a few moments of stuttered breaths and wiping her cheeks on her shoulders. When she eventually meets Max’s eyes, Max tells her one more time, “You are _not_ responsible for what happened.”

“I–”

“ _No._ But you know what you _are_ responsible for? Making her life happy. If she and I have as much in common as you say, then I _know_ you were the best thing that ever happened to her. That’s the only thing you’re responsible for – for bringing happiness and loyalty and strength into her life. Because that’s what you bring to mine. You–”

Chloe draws her hands back and buries her face completely. The way she shakes her head, like she doesn’t know how to let herself believe Max’s words… It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair how much the world has put Chloe through, and it isn’t fair how much Chloe’s still putting herself through.

Max wraps herself around Chloe, holds her, fingers digging into denim, and tries her level best to protect Chloe from herself. Max _hates_ the word ‘deserve’ now, but if it speaks to a truth, an ideal they can still cling to, then she needs to keep saying it. “You don’t deserve this,” she tells her. “You don’t deserve any of this. You’re so amazing, Chloe–”

Chloe barks a laugh like Max is crazy, and Max moves back to face her square-on.

“You fucking _are_. Do you even know how much you’ve done for me? How much I need you in my life?”

Chloe tilts her head up for some air and takes a moment to wipe down her face before she says, “That sounds about as healthy as my cigarette addiction.”

“Stop!” Max balls her fists. “Stop saying shit like that about yourself. You… you talk about ‘dragging me down’ like you’re worried about my future, but what about _yours?_ How can you not see the type of future _you_ have, how bright _you’re_ destined to shine?”

“Jesus Christ, Max. D’ya hit your head or something?” Chloe gestures to herself. “What the hell kind of ‘bright future’ am _I_ supposed to have?”

“Chloe Price, do _not_ play dumb with me. You were always the smartest person in your class, you always had the best grades, you got yourself a scholarship to _this_ elitist school, you–”

“I sucked at Gym, though.”

“You… Fine, you sucked at Gym. But–”

“I mean, who the fuck makes a kid climb ropes for an A?”

“Chloe, stop trying to change the subject.”

“But the subject is moot.” Chloe points a finger to her head. “Do you know how much poison I’ve put in this bad boy over the years? It’s too late for me now. Smart Chloe’s dead.”

“No, _stop it._ ” Max voice takes a sharp crescendo with her rage, her fear; she can’t lose Chloe like this, she can’t let Chloe lose _herself_. “You… Do you remember that t-shirt we saw back in Portland? The ninja one?”

“What about it?”

“You knew immediately that those elements were fake when I’m the one still sitting through Chem twice a week. How could you _possibly_ not see what that means?”

“I don’t see it because I’m not smart anymore; you’re just proving my point.”

“Your point is fucking baloney!”

That draws a laugh from Chloe, and it _kills_ Max that she’s writing off herself off. How can someone with so much passion, intelligence, curiosity, how can someone with so much _kindness_ sell themselves so short? How can Chloe just give up on her future like this?

But then again, Max isn’t much better about her own future. Is she really in a position to lecture Chloe when her life is also in shambles? She clenches her hands in the blanket on the seat and stares at Chloe’s bobblehead. “Side note: You wanna know something messed up?”

“What?”

“…I don’t have a portfolio.”

Chloe turns to her with wide eyes. “Wait, that… picture-application-book-thingy?”

“Yes, the picture-application-book-thingy.” She twists her lips into a sick smile. “I don’t have one.”

Chloe stares at her and her eyes grow dark. “Jefferson?”

“Yeah,” she sighs. “Jefferson.”

“Fuck.”

“I think I just assumed things would get better once he’s finally locked up for good.”

“And they will. But you can’t put your whole life on hold while you wait.”

“I know.” Max starts to fiddle with the blanket. “But I mean, maybe this is a sign. Maybe I was never meant for this whole photography thing – like, maybe I’m just a fraud, because look at Victoria and Kate. Look how they both… _pushed past_ their trauma and kept pursuing their dreams. Victoria got accepted to one of the best photography programs in the country, and Kate’s meeting with _book_ _agents,_ Chloe! Look at them, and look at _me!_ ”

Chloe puts her hands on Max’s cheeks and pulls her in, and for a wild second, Max thinks she’s about to get kissed.

But she only gets yelled at in the face.

“Stop being stupid!” Chloe shouts while Max blinks. “Why are you comparing yourself to other people, Max? So fucking _what_ if you don’t heal the same way they do? That doesn’t say shit-all about you, _you fucking know that, right?_ ”

“Um…”

Chloe lets go of Max but her anger is still glowing. “God, I wish you could see yourself when you’re behind a camera. Like, _since we were kids,_ the way your eyes would get whenever you’d spot a good shot or whatever – it’s like nothing exists in those moments but you and your shot. It’s just… pure fucking _love_ when you’re holding one of your photos in your hands.”

Max feels a throb in her chest.

“I’ve never found anything to be that passionate about – no, not even when I was a science nerd – and I’m willing to bet that most of the world would say the same.” Chloe takes one of Max’s hands off the blanket and holds it. “What you have with photography is so fucking special, Max. Don’t you dare let Jeffershit take that away from you.”

Max squeezes Chloe’s fingers and waits for Chloe’s words to take purchase before saying, “You’re right.”

“Damn straight.”

Max chuckles. “Don’t take too much credit.” She pauses to work up the courage to do this, to let Chloe see the demons. “When… I’m thinking clearly, I know you’re right. I _know_ I love photography. It’s just… hard to tune out the voices in my head sometimes.”

“Sounds like it’s time to kick some voices to the curb.”

“I wish, but it’s not that easy.” She leans back in her seat. “I’ve been trying to do that my whole life, but it’s not as simple as just ‘not listening’. These voices, they only get louder and louder in my head the more I try to ignore them, and they _always_ know which buttons to press, Chloe. They always know how to make me self-destruct, and sometimes I just wish…” She breathes against the tightness in her chest. “I just wish I wasn’t so at war with myself all the time, you know? But I can’t help it because that’s how my brain works, and… I hate it. I’m so fucking tired of it.”

Chloe holds onto her hand and looks like she wants to say something, like she wants to be the good voice to shout down Max’s bad voices, but Max knows there’s nothing she can say. It’s just not how this works.

But Max is not going to let any of this beat them.

“Chloe?”

“Yeah.”

“What if…” She tries to think of the right way to phrase this. “What if we make a deal?”

Chloe looks at her with an eyebrow cocked. “What kind of a deal?”

She tightens her grip on Chloe’s hand. “I promise I’ll get back into photography. I don’t know how long it’ll take, but I promise you I will get there.”

“Sounds good so far.”

“But the thing is, it’s way too late for this round of admissions. I’m not getting into any programs this fall, and, plus, I don’t think I should rush my… process.”

Chloe nods her head.

“So, I’ll take a year off and ease back into things. Give myself time to build up my portfolio, then apply again next year.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Chloe says, but there’s a lace of sadness around her eyes.

“I’ll do it,” Max says, then raises their joined hands, “but only if you hold up your end of the bargain.”

“Ugh, here we go. What do I have to do?”

“Apply to college with me next year.”

Chloe breaks the contact and stares at Max, slack-jawed, before she bursts into belly-laughs. “What the hell are you talking about, Caulfield?”  
  
“Shut up, I’m serious!” She punches Chloe on the arm – twice, because once wasn’t enough to cut the laughing. “Look, I know you’re rusty with the academic stuff, but you can breeze through the GED in your sleep – you’re that fucking smart, _don’t_ even try to deny it!”

“Uh, okay?”

“And then we can study for our SATs together.” She finds it in herself to smile at that idea. “It’ll be fun. Just like old times.”

Chloe rubs her arm and Max gives her her best sorry-not-sorry look.

“So, what do you think?”

“What, you gonna make me spit on it or something?”

“If I must.”

Chloe sits back against her seat and stares out the windshield again, but the weight on her seems to have ebbed a little. “First of all, I think you’re insane.”

“Because I believe in you?”

“Enough to hold your future hostage? Yeah, that’s psychotic.”

“Then fine, I’m a total whackjob. So?”

“So… I don’t know.”

Max squares herself and waits until Chloe turns to look her in the eye. “I’m not leaving you behind, Chloe.”

“Dude, don’t…”

“I’m _not._ I don’t care where I go, college or wherever, I’m not doing it without you. Never again, I _promise_ you. Come hell or high water, we go together or we don’t go at all. We–”

“Okay, okay, fine!” Chloe says with her hands up. “Holy crap, you’re being so dramatic.”

“Whatever, what do you mean by ‘fine’?”

Chloe huffs a breath that sounds like she’s aiming for a sigh but it comes out light. “I mean fine. You win. I’ll take the goddamn GED.”

Pride and relief well up in her, and she throws her arms around Chloe, squeezes because she can, because _Chloe’s_ _back._ Then Chloe wraps her arms around Max and pulls her closer, and nothing else matters now. Only that they’re here together. Only that they stay together.

Without letting go, Max reaches for one of Chloe’s hands, brings it down, and crosses their pinkies together. “Swear on it, Chloe.”

Chloe laughs again, and it’s so much cleaner this time, there’s so much more life in it. “Are you fucking serious?”

“Have you ever known me to joke about a pinky-swear?”

“You are the biggest nerd,” Chloe says, but she squeezes their fingers together anyway. “Alright, fine. I swear I’ll take the stupid GED.”

“Thank you.” Max presses her cheek into Chloe’s neck and closes her eyes, breathing in the hint of grass on Chloe’s jacket. “Can we please be okay?” she asks into Chloe’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s happening or what’s gonna happen, but I swear to you I’m never leaving you.”

“I wanna believe you, Max.” Chloe untwines their pinkies and brings her arm back around Max’s shoulder. “I’ll try to believe you.”

Max takes a moment and sits with those words, then says, “I can work with that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that chapter turned into a beast! Thanks so much, once again, to rob_lentz and u/nadvolk for helping me tame it.
> 
> Like I said in the beginning, this marks the point where I stop taking a wrecking ball to Max and Chloe's friendship. Because starting next chapter, Jefferson and his lawyers will be the ones doing all the damage... (If I told you I'm really not a sadist, would you believe me?)
> 
> The next chapter won't be coming out for a little while, though. With the holidays coming up and with some unforeseen work challenges that have put a crimp in my writing schedule, I'm gonna need a bit of time before a quality Act 2 can see the light of day. The goal is to get back into the swing of things sometime in the month of January (hopefully!), so it shouldn't be too long before everything's back in my evil clutches =)
> 
> Happy Holidays if you celebrate anything this time of year, and Happy New Year to all! 
> 
> Oh and btw, did you know that reviews make great stocking stuffers? =)))))))


	6. Justice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recap of last chapter:
> 
> * Max faces the fact that she hasn't put together proper art school applications because of all her trauma. She decides to confide in Chloe about her concerns over her future, but Chloe blows a fuse thinking that Max leaving for college means Max is ditching again - just like "Rachel" has been warning her would happen.
> 
> * Chloe bails on Max and ghosts her for a few days. In that time, she comes to the realization (with "Rachel's" help) that she isn't just afraid of Max leaving again; she's afraid of dragging Max down. She also realizes she was out of line with her anger towards Max.
> 
> * When Max and Chloe make up, they make a deal: Max will take a year off to work on getting her photography back on track, but only if Chloe agrees to study for her GED. Chloe eventually agrees.

What’s that saying about March? In like a lion, out like a lamb?

Chloe doesn’t know about the lion bit, but the lamb part sure as shit is true. When March fucks off and April rolls in with Mark Jefferson’s hearing, the whole of Arcadia Bay turns into this mindless herd – sheeple bleating about every talking point they see on their newsfeed despite half of it being complete crap.

Like all those fake sightings of Nathan Prescott, like he’s not actually dead by Jefferson’s hands and left rotting away somewhere. Chloe knows that until that bastard’s body is finally found, conspiracy theories will continue to kick up from every corner of town. Nathan the innocent, Nathan the mastermind, Nathan the pawn, Nathan the Prescott heir who’s been stashed away until the heat dies down – the blowhards of Arcadia Bay will keep twisting that fucker’s disappearance into legend for their own sick entertainment.

Or when some idiot blogger decides to lay out all of the charges Jefferson is facing and the whole town starts giving their expert opinions on them. Only, hang on, shitheads! Nobody knows what he’s being charged with yet because _that’s what the goddamn hearing is for._ Even Max gets duped by that one – although Chloe doesn’t blame her as much. Poor Max’s head is too crowded with the knowledge that no matter what charges are read, her name will never be included. Max isn’t the first victim to be robbed of justice and she won’t be the last, but that’s cold fucking comfort when she’s waking up in sweats every other night.

The hot takes and fake scoops keep rolling in, and through it all, Chloe tries to keep a level head and as much distance from the shitshow as possible. Why feed the trolls, right? But she just about loses her mind when some asswipe posts a rumor on Facebook that Rachel was sleeping with Jefferson, that her death happened as a crime of passion. It gets reposted so much Chloe has to spend the night drinking her brain to mush, because even though she knows it’s nothing but a fresh pile of bull, it brings up memories of those photos she saw. Rachel’s last moments in that binder. That look in her eyes – so much fight still left in her but her body too bound, too drugged, too desecrated to do its part.

And that’s why even though she knows the hearing will probably be over in minutes – there’s too much evidence against Jefferson for it not move straight to trial – Chloe decides she’s going anyway. She won’t fail Rachel. Not this time. Not again.

“You’re _positive_ about this?” Max asks her the morning of, as Chloe’s getting ready in Max’s dorm, psyching herself up for another drive out to Portland.

“Yeah, I am,” Chloe says as she takes Rachel’s old flannel out from her backpack. She pulls it on and tries her best to get comfortable in it, then spends twice as long peeling it off. “You don’t have to come if it’s too much, though.” She finally frees her wrists from the sleeves. “I totally get if you just wanna hang back.”

“But I…” Max swallows and looks like she’s trying to keep something from coming up. “I don’t want you to do this alone.”

“I appreciate you having my back, Max.” Chloe folds the flannel under her arm and gives Max a hug from the side, partly to say thanks but more to make sure Max stays upright. “But I won’t be alone.” She leans down and meets Max’s eyes. “David’ll be there too, remember?”

Max loosens a weak laugh and Chloe only lasts two seconds before a snort shoots out.

“Yeah, fine, he doesn’t count. But hey, neither does a preliminary hearing! Just a formality, right?”

“I know. I just…” Max shuffles to her bed and perches on the edge of it, bringing her knees up to her chin. She traces her finger along the outline of her tattoo for a bit – Chloe suspects not subconsciously. Max has been doing this a lot these days, especially as the hearing gets closer. The finger runs figure eights on her ankle for long enough that Chloe decides to sit down next to her, shoulder to shoulder.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Max stops with the tracing and pulls her legs closer to her chest. “Chloe, what if something goes wrong? What if David messes up his testimony, or… what if Jefferson pleads not guilty?”

The thought has occurred to Chloe before – that Jefferson might put up a fight and she’ll have to sit there and watch his lawyer argue what a stand-up guy he really is. If that actually happens, she can't be sure she won't commit a felony herself, but… it won’t. This world is hella messed up but it’s not _that_ fucked.

Right?

“Don’t worry, dude," she tells Max. "This is an open-and-shut case. David and the cops busted that shitstain red handed – he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

“God, I hope so.” Max grinds her teeth for a second before looking at Chloe. “How are you so calm right now?”

Chloe sighs. “Trust me. This is just a temporary arrangement my brain has with my body. Wait till I get to fucking Portland.”

“We,” Max corrects her. “I’m still coming.”

“Alright, alright. Not like I’m gonna say no to your company.” Chloe bumps her on the shoulder. “But any point you need to stop for air or a smoke, you let me know, okay?”

Max bumps back. “You know I don’t smoke.”

“One of your many adorkable qualities.” Chloe gives Max’s hair a quick muss and is rewarded with an eye roll and a small puff of a chuckle. Good. Anything to keep their minds off the nightmare they’re about to drive straight into, anything to hold on to their sanity a little longer.

Except Max then does something that can’t be described as anything but batshit nutballs.

She goes and picks up her camera.

“O...kay?” Chloe gets up, walks over to her, and points to the old Polaroid. “Uh, care to explain?”

Max keeps her gaze on the camera, holding it two-handed, as carefully as she would the nuclear football. “I don’t know if I can, to be honest,” she says, still running her eyes over the thing. “But…”

Chloe waits through a few beats of silence before asking, “But?”

Max squares her shoulder and her jaw tenses. When she finally lifts her face, Chloe sees a riddle of contradictions in her best friend. Skin pale as porcelain but eyes hard like marble. Shivers like she’s freezing but breathes like there’s a furnace in her belly. “Can you give me a moment alone?”

It takes Chloe a second to understand what Max is asking for: space to work shit out. On her own. Without Chloe to prop her up. “Yeah, sure,” she says. “Whatever you need.”

“Thank you.” There’s a smile in Max’s voice that doesn’t quite reach her lips, or maybe Chloe just doesn’t stick around long enough to see it reach her lips. She makes herself scarce and closes Max’s the door behind her, before Max can change her mind and call her back in.

Because Max might be oblivious to this but Chloe’s always known it to be true: that when she comes into her own, Max Caulfield will be a force to be reckoned with. There’s a freight train in that tiny body, and if it takes facing down a literal sociopath for her to finally stoke the engine then so be it. Once that girl has her shit figured out, the world had better watch out. Choo-choo, motherfuckers.

Chloe looks to make sure she still has Rachel’s shirt with her before starting down the hallway. The dorms are dead silent today, every door shut, maybe locked. Like all these kids have decided to throw themselves in solitary confinement, penitence for their guilt-by-association to the monster they once loved.

Stupid.

Blackwell students might be assholes but it’s not their fault their teacher was a psycho. Jefferson was the ultimate predator, blending in not as part of the herd but as the shepherd. He had everyone fooled – Wells, Grant, Kate, Max. Even Chloe.

Even Rachel.

She reaches the room – Room 224 – and stops in front of it. Just stares at it. The door is closed like all the others here, and the slate– It’s blank. Come to think of it, it seems like most of the slates are empty today. But those other ones don’t bother her; it’s normal for everyone else to have nothing to say every once in a while.

Rachel, though? Even though this room hasn’t been hers for months, it’s just wrong to see it… _empty._

Chloe remembers when Rachel went through that phase where she’d start every morning with a new quote – scribble it on the slate in that loopy scrawl she used whenever she was feeling artsy. The quotes would always be something equally profound and pretentious, and Chloe never missed an opportunity to mess with them – wait until the school day had started, then sneak into the dorms and make her own mark on Rachel’s inspirations. She’d change Shakespeare’s “one good deed” to “one good dick”; under Beckett’s “unforgettable line” she’d draw a line of coke; and there was that one Hugo quote about “practicable entrances”... She outdid herself that day when she made Rachel freaking Amber laugh so hard she actually drooled down her shirt.

Chloe can’t help but smirk at the memory. It was so fucking dumb, setting her alarm every morning just to go and goof on Rachel’s slate. But at least it gave her a reason to wake up. Rachel gave her a reason to wake up. To keep waking up.

Chloe never got to thank her for that.

“H- Hey, Rach.” Her words stick in her throat and she has to clear it a couple times to get them loose. “Today’s the day. I’m, uh… Max and I, we’re headed to Portland soon. And I’m– Fuck. I’m gonna make sure you get justice.” She brings the flannel up to her chest and holds it there, clutches it, feels it against her skin. “And listen. This shirt’s too small for me to do any driving in, but I swear I’ll put it on when I get to Portland, okay? I swear I’ll bring you into that courtroom. I _swear_ I’ll make him see you, fucking face what he did to you.” She raises a hand and touches her fingers to the slate, and an empty ache swells across her chest. “He will pay for what he did to you, Rachel.”

“That was her room, wasn’t it?” Max’s voice comes out of nowhere and makes Chloe’s blood spike, but she doesn’t move, only closes her eyes and angles her face away from Max.

“Yeah.” She draws a breath and tries to even herself out. Max doesn’t need to see her like this.

Max says nothing. She just leans herself into Chloe’s side, holding her, letting Chloe draw strength from her. Which might be ass-backwards because Max is the one about to face her literal worst nightmare, but fuck, if it doesn’t just feel _right_ to have Max here. Standing here, absorbing all the grief shaking out through Chloe’s seams despite her best efforts to keep herself together.

Because regardless of what Chloe tells Max, what Chloe tries to tell herself, today might just be the day when Chloe’s own two legs aren’t enough to hold her up anymore.

They stay there until Chloe’s sure she can talk without wobbling and giving herself away. Still, she tries her voice on a few words just to be safe. “You ready for this?”

 

* * *

  

No, Max isn’t ready for this. She’ll probably never be ready to face Jefferson again, because how do you prepare yourself for something like that?

But she makes herself march towards Chloe’s truck anyway, forces her hands to lock in her seat belt, tells her mind to break free of itself because if there’s ever a day for her to grow a pair of ovaries and prove that she’s not some forever-broken limpet, today might just be it.

The silence in the cab is dense, a cacophony of the fears they’re too weary to give voice to, and for a few moments Max worries her resolve might snap under the weight of it all. But when Chloe slams her brakes to a sudden lurch, Max sees something that reminds her she’s not the only one plowing headfirst into her demons today.

There, at the end of Bay Avenue, well outside of town, is Victoria Chase storming out of the back of a Prius. As soon as Victoria’s feet hit the gravel, the little car peels off down the road and leaves her in the dust as she fires a string of elitist slurs into its wake.

“Uh oh,” Chloe says. “Looks like _somebody_ was being a nasty bitch to her Uber driver.”

“Chloe,” Max chides, although Chloe’s assessment is probably spot on. A small line of traffic starts to form behind them and Chloe makes to floor the gas, but Max puts an arm out in front of her. “Wait! You know, if she really did just lose her Uber, we should offer her a ride.”

“ _What?_ ” Chloe’s eyes go wide. “No, nuh-uh, no fucking way! I’m not gonna play Bitchtoria Chase’s personal chauffeur when I’m just trying to get us to Portland.”

Max shoots her a deadpan. “Okay, and where exactly do you think she’s going?”

“What are you talking about, Max?” Chloe tries to move Max’s arm away but Max keeps it in place. The hatchback behind them starts laying on the horn. “Dude, we don’t have time for this!”

Max shakes her head. “Chloe. She’s on her way to the hearing, too. She was… one of Jefferson’s victims, remember?”

That slows Chloe’s roll. She looks at Max for a hard moment before dropping her shoulders. “Shit,” she sighs. “Fine.” She pulls the car over and flips a finger at the hatchback as it flies past them in an angry screech. “You owe me _so big_ for this, Maxed-Out Credit Card.”

“Yes, I do,” Max says quickly before jumping out of the truck and shouting, “Victoria!”

Victoria snaps her head up from her phone. “Max?” she says, and there’s a good second where her face looks open, innocent, just surprised to randomly run into her classmate on the road. But then something takes over – this shadow of distrust, of anger sharpened to thorns – and she’s speaking to Max through a shell of armor again. “What do _you_ want?”

Max gets a little closer to her. “Is everything okay? We saw you getting out of that car–”

“Fucking Uber jockey suddenly decided he doesn’t need my money.” Victoria turns to the direction of the Prius and yells, “Good luck climbing out of your one-star hole, you unwashed piece of–”

“Hey!” Max steps in front of her. “If you’re going to Portland, Chloe and I are on our way there, too. You should come with us.”

“I don’t need your pity ride,” Victoria spits like it’s an instinct, and Max wonders what Samuel would say about Victoria’s spirit animal. A hedgehog? A pufferfish? _Bowser?_

“Victoria, it’s not a pity ride. There’s strength in numbers, and we all need whatever strength we can get on a day like today. I’d actually really like it if you’d join us.”

Victoria doesn’t answer, only looks down her nose at Max.

“Look, even if that driver didn’t just get you blacklisted, it’s not like you’ll get anyone else to pick you up out here. You might as well come with us.”

Victoria still doesn’t say anything, and the situation almost devolves into the world’s most pointless stare-down until Chloe leans out of her window and shouts, “Yo, Chase! Just pull that silver spoon out of your ass and get in the goddamn car!”

“Chloe!”

Victoria huffs a laugh. “That’s not a fucking car, Price,” she says, although she finally starts walking towards the truck.

“Right, like you know anything about cars besides how to charge them to daddy’s credit card. Now move your basic fucking ass.”

Victoria scrunches her face as she approaches the open passenger door. “Jesus, did you build this piece of shit at IKEA?" she says as she peers inside. "I guess those instructions aren’t as idiot-proof as they think.”

Chloe sneers and points to Victoria’s hair. “Hey, nice dye job. What do they call that color, _‘Kylie Jenner’s Bleached Asshole’? ”_

“What do they call yours, _‘Blue Balls Awareness Month’? ”_

“At least I can _give_ a guy blue balls.”

“Yeah, by letting it all hang out.” Victoria gives Chloe a once-over. “Ugh, that tank top is a total strip show.”

“Why, Victoria!” Chloe waggles her brows and rubs her hands along her midriff as Max fights a blush. “I didn’t realize you were so thiiirsty for this.”

Victoria crosses her arms. “In your dreams, bitch. You know the sideboob look only works if you _have_ boobs?”

“So _that’s_ why you always dress like Judge Judy!”

“Of course you watch that show, deadbeat.” Victoria turns back around as Max tries to collect her jaw off the pavement. “Max, you get in first. I am not sitting next to Garbage Patch Kid the whole way down.”

“I–” Max glances between Chloe and Victoria. What is happening right now? Did Chloe literally just insult Victoria into accepting their offer?

How does that even work?

“Well?” Victoria presses. “You getting in or not?”

Max sighs and climbs her way into the cab, shuffling to the middle of the bench. She mouths a “sorry” to Chloe, but Chloe just shrugs before barking at Victoria to share her seat belt with Max.

“For fuck’s sake, you only have two seat belts for three people?” Victoria rolls her eyes as she passes the latch over for Max to buckle. “What a junk heap,” she loud-mumbles. “The truck, too.”

“Victoria!”

“Oh, it’s okay, Max,” Chloe crows as they pull onto the road again. “If she keeps this up, I’ll just dump her on the side of Route 6. Let’s see Cersei try and scheme her way out of that one.”

“Bring it on, Skinny Pete.”

“Try being relevant, Ann Coulter.”

“Try staying off crack, Courtney Love.”

“Try having a soul, Kardashian.”

Max groans. “Please tell me I don’t have to ref this roast battle fail all the way to Portland.”

Chloe grins at her. “Would it help my case if I pointed out that _she started it? ”_

“Oh my god, Chloe…” Max pinches the bridge of her nose as Victoria denies those charges with a “No, _you_ did.”

Two more hours of this? _Are you cereal?_

“Whatever,” Victoria grumbles and stares pointedly out the window. “I’m not driving back with you bitches. You know that, right?”

“Too good for this junk heap, Queen V?”

“Something like that.” Victoria’s eyes flash to Max so quickly Max almost misses it. “Actually, I’m staying with Kate for the night.” She turns further away from Max. “Guess you had a point back then.”

There’s something in Victoria’s voice that disarms Max. Resentment? Regret? No, wait, _hope?_ “That’s great to hear, Victoria,” Max tells her, and she means it. There might be a lot of things Victoria has in her life that Max is stupidly envious of, but a true friend is not one of them. Max and Chloe have each other. Who does Victoria have now that Nathan… “I’m sure Kate is thrilled to have you over.”

Someone less practiced in the ways of the wallflower wouldn’t have noticed, but it doesn’t escape Max how Victoria sits a bit lower on her seat, how her shoulders dips just a shade. “Who fucking cares?” she says, haughty but hollow, like she barely has the energy left to keep up her own charade.

Max decides not to press the issue – or god forbid provoke Chloe and Victoria into another round of _Are You More Juvenile Than A Fifth Grader?_ – so she settles herself into the silence. It’s awkward and uneasy for the first long, long while, but eventually the tension falls away and Max is able to let the scenery wash over her.

She watches as shades of deep color fly past their windows, hillside pines to her left, sea and sky on her right. She’s never been good at capturing motion in her photography – even when she borrowed expensive school equipment, she never had as good of an eye for holding movement the way Evan or even Victoria did – but she was starting to improve. Before everything happened, before the click of a shutter would roil her stomach or the flash of a bulb would freeze her mind, she’d been practicing and getting better with motion blur photography.

She wants that again. To work towards something again.

As more colors and shapes flow past her, she starts visualizing it – what she’d do to capture each shot. Which filter she’d attach, how much she’d lower her shutter speed by, what levels she’d set her aperture and ISO to, _where she’d focus the shot_ – and click. Photo.

She smiles. This… she can do this. Sure, she’s imagining all of it in her head and who knows how it’d translate to a real camera, but mental photography is still photography, kind of. It’s better than nothing, and Max is so tired of achieving _nothing._ Especially when she knows that buried deep under all of her nightmares and fears and doubts, she’s destined for more than this.

Max Caulfield is a photographer. _That’s_ what she’s destined for. And it might take a lot of baby steps to even get back to being the doe-eyed amateur she was last October, but those are steps she’ll be taking now. They start _now._ Jagged treeline – click. Deer in a clearing – click. Burly biker gang – click.

Each picture she takes in her mind’s eye gets stashed away, converted to something that steadies her, firms her footing, and Max loses track of how long she does this for because for the first time in months, she thinks she’s finally found some peace.

Until she looks up to see the city of Portland looming ahead like a storm cloud.

And she remembers the last time she came down this stretch of road. It feels like it happened in a different life, to a different person. That whole day – everything she was so anxious about, everything that broke her heart, even – it all seems so innocent now, the tribulations of a person wearing a normal life for a day. Like when she’d try on her mom’s shoes as a child and pretend she had Vanessa Caulfield’s confidence. Or when she was given superpowers at 18 and thought that she could control her life the same way she could wrap time around her fingers.

But it was all fake. She faked it all, all of it, _all_ of it was fake. She never had her mother’s confidence, never set foot in Portland a normal girl, never had any control of the situation, of her future, of her life. She’s always been a coward, a tiny sniveling coward, and now she’s about to face the man who turned that coward into dust, ground her up like bones then scattered her to the wind so that anything that was ever good about her – ever _worthwhile_ about her – is memory, past, gone, and…

No.

No, no, no, no, no, _fuck_ that.

That’s not true. She might be a coward and she might be in really, _really_ bad shape right now, but she’s still her, and she’s still here. And no fucking way she’ll let that bastard destroy her all over again.

She won’t give him the satisfaction. He will not win over her. He will not win ever again, _ever._

“-ax?” Her name takes a second to register. “Max, breathe. C’mon, dude. Deep breaths.”

“Shit, Price, I think you’d better pull over.”

“Yeah, doing it, doing it.” She hears Chloe click on her blinker. “Yo, Max–”

“No, Chloe, I’m okay.”

Victoria’s nails dig into her arm. “You’re clearly not.”

“I am.” She forces herself to rake in some air. “Seriously, I’m fine.” Another deep breath. “Let’s just get there.”

“Max, I’m pulling ov–”

“ _No._ ” One more breath. “No, I’m good. I’ve got this.” She turns to Chloe and forces Chloe to meet her eyes. “You know I’ve got this, right?”

_You believe in me, right?_

Chloe stares at her, hard, reads her between the lines, then says, “Yeah, fine.” She looks back at the road with a sigh. “We’ll keep going. Not too far now, anyway.”

“Thank you.”

“Are you two fucking serious right now?”

“Max says she’s good, she’s good. Don’t need your opinion.”

“She’s _carsick!_ That’s not an opinion!”

Chloe snorts. “Yeah, it’s actually called a _medical_ opinion? And I’m pretty sure you’re not qualified to give one, Dr. Nick.”

“God, why do you still talk like such a loser?”

“Why do you still talk like you’re fourteen?”

Max groans herself back to reality. “Will you guys please stop?”

Victoria narrows her eyes at Max and pushes away from her like she’s diseased. “I swear, Max. Do _not_ throw up on me.”

“Relax, Victoria. I won’t.”

Chloe nudges Max from the side. “But you’ll make me so proud if you do.”

“Eat shit, dumpster fire.”

“After you, bougie bitch.”

“Nice comeback, sadcase.”

“Keepin’ it at your level, stupid.”

For reasons that have nothing to do with Portland, Max puts her face in her hands. “Can we _please_ just get there?”

  

* * *

 

The courthouse is everything Max expected it _not_ to be.

In the movies, they always show courthouses to be these historic Parthenon-looking structures, every crack in the old stone facades a sign of experience – the wrinkles on a face worn with wisdom. They always give you the sense that justice is not a woman to be trifled with. That she’s some kind of ancient goddess who watches over her citizens as they pass through her hallowed courts. That her powers lie rumbling beneath these buildings and she will smite anyone who violates her sacred laws.

But the Mark O. Hatfield Courthouse is the exact opposite of that. Modern, sleek, striking in its stark lines – it makes Max feel… cold. Like there’s something hidden behind its handsome features. Like it’s too beautiful to be what it’s supposed to be, do the job it’s supposed to do.

It doesn’t look like a place where Lady Justice has any reach.

Kate meets them in the entrance – and she’s so a small standing alone in that dark grand hall that Max is reminded of a mouse in the jaws of a wolf.

She shudders as she hugs her old friend and tries to shake the feeling that they’re all about to walk straight into a snare.

 

* * *

 

It doesn’t take long for them to find the courtroom; all Chloe had to do was follow the swarm of reporters buzzing for the latest Mark Jefferson scoop. She tells the others to go in without her, gotta piss, and makes for the bathroom. When she’s finally alone, she takes out Rachel’s flannel and looks at it. Tries not to see the tremor in her hands, tries not to notice the blur in her vision, tries not to lose her shit.

Max needs her today. _Rachel_ needs her today. When she puts this shirt on, walks into that courtroom, _faces him down,_ it will be Rachel that they all see. And she will give them Rachel. Rachel’s spirit, Rachel’s fire – that’s what she needs to bring in there.

She takes a deep breath and pulls the shirt on, swallows against the sting working its way through her chest, then takes another moment to steady herself. Shake out her jitters, throw a splash of water on her face, _breathe._

“Okay, Rach. Let’s do this.”

 

* * *

 

When Chloe walks into the courtroom, she find the place packed out already. She scans around and sees a few people she recognizes. The Ambers, who Chloe didn’t realize had gotten back together. The Prescotts, stony and blank like their faces are really just masks of themselves. David sitting sandwiched between Officers Corn and Berry like he’s suddenly one of the gang. Some chick with dreadlocks gives her a shocked stare – she looks really familiar but Chloe can’t place her, maybe some Blackwell alum – but Chloe turns away; not the time to catch up with old acquaintances.

She finds Max sitting with Kate and Victoria near the front and legs it over to join them. As she sits down, she gets a look from Kate and Victoria – a glance at her shirt – but neither of them says anything. Max just puts a hand on hers, waits until Chloe turns her palm up, and entwines their fingers. Support and comfort, solace and strength, pooling between their hands, a ready supply if either of them needs it.

 _When_ they need it.

A door at the front creaks open and the courtroom hubbub falls to a sudden hush. Chloe watches, heart in throat, as a procession of suits walks in; a line-up of sharp-dressed men who look nothing like State-appointed lawyers moving towards the Defendant’s bench. They take their places but none of them sit. Instead, they turn to look at the door, waiting for their client.

Max makes a choking noise next to Chloe and starts to tremble, and Chloe notices that she’s not doing much better herself. She grips onto Max’s hand, squeezes it and tries to steady their shakes, then clenches her other into a tight fist. Wishing she could hold Rachel's hand with it, too.

She hears the footsteps grow closer now, a slow saunter like the bastard’s taking a fucking walk in the park, before she sees it. His face. Him.

Mark fucking Jefferson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's update: 
> 
> There's an illness in the family that's occupying a lot of my headspace, and work has decided to kick into high gear, so I apologize if chapters are slower to come.
> 
> This story is still being worked on, though! (And you can rest assured that my betas* are keeping tabs on my progress!)
> 
> *My betas are rob_lentz and u/nadvolk. Thanks as always for the help - and massive credit to them both for helping me with the banter and cultural references in this chapter.


	7. Victims

Max has been preparing for this moment for months, steeling herself against the inevitability of facing him again. Mark Jefferson, his white-framed glasses, his trimmed goatee, his just-so coiffe. She’s been bracing herself for the waves of anxiety to crash over her when she so much as catches a glimpse of his eyes. But when he comes through that door – “Authorized Personnel Only” painted in matte black against mahogany – all of that fear lands in a dull thud.

Because he looks nothing like she imagined he would. Nothing like she remembers, even. In his orange jumpsuit, his wrists chained together, hair wilting over his face and beard growing like weeds, she finds nothing intimidating about him. He’s slimmer, too, like he either hasn’t been eating or hasn’t been getting fed. Even his glasses are different, the designer frames replaced by some cheap-looking plastic ones that don’t seem to fit his face, nevermind his character, and the entire image he paints is just… pathetic.

When he takes his seat, Max turns to Chloe, and she recognizes the look on Chloe’s face – the mistrust in the sharp lines of her brows. She’s staring at Jefferson like she wants to dissect this husk of the predator they once knew, pin him like a lab animal and examine his rotten insides. She grinds her teeth, a muscle jumping in her jaw.

“Chloe,” Max tries. “What do you think is happening with Jeff–?”

“I don’t know.” There’s a tightness to those words, and Chloe’s fingers wrap around Max’s. “But I don’t like it.”

Max wants to ask why, but she’s not sure she has to. She feels it, too.

Something’s not right.

She glances to her other side, at Kate and Victoria sitting in silence. Victoria’s arms are pressed across her chest and her eyes are fixed on the back of Jefferson’s head, her glare white-hot like she’s trying to set him on fire through sheer will. And hate. Victoria Chase in her element.

But Kate just looks… confused.

“Hey, Kate,” Max says, and Kate gives a little jump. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, Max,” Kate says with a thin smile. “You’re sweet to ask, but I’m fine. Seeing Mr. Jefferson again is less… terrible than I thought it would be.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Max tries to sound convincing, both for Kate and for herself, because god knows Kate has been through enough this year and is there anyone who deserves peace more than her?

But it’s off. Kate’s peace is off. Seeing him, being in his presence – it shouldn’t make her feel at ease.

The door opens again, and as an older woman in black robes and a tightly-wound bun sweeps in, the bailiff announces for the room to rise. “The honorable Elizabeth Wallace presiding,” he declares, although Max’s eyes aren’t on him or on Judge Wallace. She stares instead at Jefferson, how it takes him a few extra beats to clamor to his feet as he fumbles with his shackles, how he seems strained just from the effort to stand up.

Next to her, Kate lets out a faint sigh – a sound that’s so distinctly, utterly Kate Marsh; a sound that used to warm Max’s heart but now just makes it constrict. The sound of compassion.

_This is not right._

“Good morning, everyone,” Judge Wallace greets, her words brisk, crisp, all business. Just another case on her docket; just another day in her life. “Please be seated,” she says, and the room obeys, shuffling into a dense hush. She nods her head at the Prosecution table, and a heavy-set man with a growing bald spot and a walrus mustache pushes to his feet.

“Good morning, Your Honor,” he bellows, his foghorn voice too loud for the pin-drop silence of the room. It reminds Max of how Chloe sometimes talks when she forgets she’s wearing headphones. There’s an honesty to the way his words boom from his chest. “So!” he says, then looks down to the files in his hands. “This is Case Number 110422871, prosecution undertaken by me – Thomas Travers, Multnomah County District Attorney.”

Judge Wallace nods at him again, her face expressionless.

“The nature of this case,” DA Travers says, then turns full-bodied to Jefferson, his broad shoulders squared, and announces, “is the State of Oregon versus Marcus Spencer Jefferson.”

Those words beat like a drumline against Max’s heart.

There’s a moment of stillness as DA Travers continues to stare down at Jefferson. Max can see deep laugh wrinkles around the DA’s eyes – like he’d be a totally different man when he’s off the clock and his tie comes off – but there’s nothing affable about the way he’s regarding Jefferson. She’s positive she would cower under his scrutiny, and she hopes Jefferson is feeling every bit as scared. “We’re here today for the scheduled preliminary hearing of the Accused on the following charges: Felony Kidnapping in the second degree; Causing Another Person to Ingest a Controlled Substance; and–” DA Travers pauses to make sure he has Jefferson’s full attention– “Murder in the first degree.”

Chloe’s breath hitches and Max gives her fingers a squeeze - maybe to reassure herself a little, too. Because she's not sorry he's being charged with Rachel's death. Even if Nathan's the one who overdosed her, Jefferson deserves to go down for it. And Max doesn't care if thinking that makes her a bad person.

“Do you understand, Mr. Jefferson,” DA Travers continues, “that you are being charged with seventeen counts of Kidnapping in the second degree, and seventeen counts of Causing Another Person to Ingest a Controlled Substance, because from the months of October 2010 to September 2013, you are accused of having drugged, forcibly taken, and confined seventeen minors? All of them girls, all of them pupils at the school where you were employed as a trusted educator.” He levels a glare. “Do you understand those charges?”

Jefferson leans forward into his microphone, so slowly Max thinks she can hear his spine creak. “Yes,” he says, his voice raspy, threadbare.

The DA’s eye gives a funny twitch but he presses on. “And do you understand, Mr. Jefferson, that you are being charged with one count of Murder in the first degree, because on or about the date of April 22nd, 2013, you are accused of having not only kidnapped but also overdosed – thus causing the death of – Rachel Dawn Amber, a human being? Do you understand those charges?”

It takes Jefferson even longer to reach his mic this time. “Yes,” he says with a quaver in his voice, like he’s forcing remorse into it, like he wants to miss Rachel.

“ _Fucker,_ ” Chloe hisses. Her hand clamps against Max’s so hard it hurts, but Max says nothing.

“Your Honor.” The DA looks to the judge. “It is the State’s intention today to demonstrate that there is more than sufficient evidence to establish probable cause and move Mr. Jefferson’s case to trial. With your permission, I will present my first exhibit now.”

Judge Wallace gives her assent and DA Travers takes out a plain manila folder. It dawns on Max what’s inside that folder, and her stomach turns to liquid.

“I have here photographs of the crime scene, taken on the night of Mr. Jefferson’s arrest.” He pulls out a piece of paper – an A4 glossy, a normal sheet of paper with the weight of life and death printed on it. “This first one shows seventeen binders with girls’ names written on them, all of them containing multiple photographs of victims who appear bound and unconscious. These next three, sample contents of said binders, and the fourth, a photo of victim Victoria Chase that was stored on the Accused’s hard disk, not yet printed, though a binder with her name is visible in the first photograph. Your Honor, if I may approach?”

“Please,” Judge Wallace tells him, and as DA Travers crosses over to hand her the folder, Max hears Kate whispering quick words to Victoria. Soft comfort to patch over Victoria’s cracking facade.

Max isn’t sure how Judge Wallace can do this job. How she can just there, stiff back and thin lips, examining the photos like a teacher grading a stack of tests, gaze hawkish but unaffected. Just business, as she takes in these image of kids being drugged, kidnapped, violated, defiled. Of Victoria – limp and desecrated in the picture in her hand while shaking with vengeance and rage in the her courtroom. Max wonders who else’s vacant eyes and mangled limbs are splashed across those pages. She still remembers opening Kate’s binder, opening Rachel’s, seeing the shots of her own ragdoll body. Black-and-white depictions of realities that should’ve never been allowed to pass. She swallows and focuses on the pressure of Chloe’s fingers until she finds her breath again.

“Thank you, Mister District Attorney.” Judge Wallace arranges the photos into a neat pile and hands them back to the DA. “Next?”

DA Travers clears his throat in a baritone rumble. “Next we have the police report of the arrest, as well as the most recent Coroner’s report on victim Rachel Dawn Amber.” He turns a pointed glance at the Defense team, like a child about to tattletell. “Please note that at the behest of Mr. Jefferson’s legal representatives, who took issue with each of the previous reports released, Coroner Abbas was forced to perform an unprecedented _six full examinations_ on Ms. Amber’s corpse.” He finishes with a long glare at Jefferson’s lawyers.

“Noted, Mister District Attorney,” Judge Wallace says, then pauses for a beat before reaching out her hand. “The files, please?”

As DA Travers unpins his eyes from the Defense team long enough to give his stack of reports to the judge, Max feels Chloe start to seethe.

“Hey, you doing okay?” Max whispers.

Chloe stiffens for a second before answering. “Not the word I’d use for either of us today, but yeah. Just…” Her brows harden like a tightrope. “Did he just say they held Rachel’s– ...they held Rachel for longer than normal?”

Max thinks back on the DA’s words. “I guess that’s what he means by ‘unprecedented’.”

“I fucking _knew_ it,” Chloe spits. “I _thought_ four months was way too long. So why the fuck didn’t James Amber do something about it? With his great powers of bureaucracy and all that horseshit, why did he let them do that to her?”

Max cranes around to look at DA Amber. His face is ghost-white, eyes bloodshot and skin waxy like he hasn’t slept in days, hasn’t stopped crying in months. Next to him, Mrs. Amber looks stricken, too, but she seems to be holding it together better than DA Amber. She looks like the only reason he is still upright. “I don’t know, Chloe.”

“I’ll tell you why.” There’s enough venom behind each vowel to make Max wince. “That piece of human waste gave up on Rachel the second she disappeared. He thought she ran away to find her real mom and get high or whatever the fuck delinquent bullshit he suspected she was up to, so he fucking disowned her.”

Max’s eyes snap to Chloe. _“Seriously?”_

“Max. How the hell else do you explain why he sat on his ivory-white ass while I tore Arcadia apart trying to find _his daughter?_ Because he stopped giving a shit, that’s fucking why!”

Victoria leans over to shoot them a _will-you-two-shut-up_ glare, and Chloe acquiesces with a flick of her middle finger before settling back in her seat, lip still curled.

And it’s not Max’s place to disagree with Chloe about this – not now, not ever – but she doesn’t think Chloe’s right. DA Amber does not look like someone who gave up, never mind someone who stopped caring. If anything, he looks like he’s sitting through torture just to be here today, to watch as the judge reads through numbers and figures extracted from his child’s dead body to determine whether his loss is worth pursuing.

If there’s anyone who understands Chloe’s grief, anyone whose strife outweighs Chloe’s, it’s James Amber.

Judge Wallace ruffles the papers. “I’ve finished with the reports, District Attorney Travers. Do you have anymore evidence to present for the hearing at this time?”

“Yes, Your Honor.” The DA turns around and scans the Gallery with his whiskey-brown eyes until he spots his target. He gives the person a firm nod. David nods back. “The Prosecution calls David Madsen to provide his account of the Accused’s arrest.”

 

* * *

 

Much as David loves to strut around like the big cock on campus, Chloe knows he can be a nervous little prick if you shine the right light on him. And apparently, the fluorescents over a witness stand are exactly the right hue to make him shrivel into tiny tool.

When he’s asked to state his name for the record, David’s mustache wriggles and twitches like dying roadkill, and for the first time since the day she met him Chloe actually feels... _conflicted_ about the guy. All his nerves reducing him to the shakes like it’s the first day of military school and he’s being hollered at for his dirty latrine (or whatever they yell at people for there) – Chloe’s happy to bask in all that delicious schadenfreude. But then she feels bad, _actually guilty_ about her smugness because for once, for fucking once, David is on her side and fighting for her cause. And she’s supposed to root for him.

Here she thought her head couldn’t get anymore scrambled.

When David finally gets his name out, Travers plods up to him. “Mr. Madsen,” Travers says, as gently as someone with a megaphone for a larynx can. “Thank you for agreeing to provide your testimony today.”

“Y–” David’s voice cracks like a prepubescent boy, then he tries to play it off like it’s a mic problem and gives the thing a tap, but he does it too hard and knocks it clean off its stand. The mic hits the floor like a cannon shot, and David blushes – the way an actual human being would. He’s turned a deep shade of tomato by the time Travers picks it up and puts it back on the stand for him. “You’re welcome,” he tells Travers, and his eyes shoot to saucers. “I mean, thank you, sir. Um, for the microphone. I apologize, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s okay, Mr. Madsen.” Travers gives him an encouraging smile. “Please just go ahead with your testimony when you’re ready.”

David gives an empty cough and rearranges himself to absolutely no effect. “Yes, sir. Yes, um…” He coughs a few more times. “My… my name is David Madsen. I am currently 42 years of age. Head of Security at Blackwell Academy in Arcadia Bay, Tillamook County, Oregon State. Former United States Army, 25th Infantry Division - Airborne, served from the years 2001 to 2007, one tour in Iraq and two in Afgh–”

“Your Honor.” A lawyer from Jefferson’s side – a skinny dude in a skinnier suit – interrupts David’s rambles. “While I have no doubt that Mr. Madsen’s service to his country is to be commended, his prolonged talk of it here is neither productive nor appropriate.”

The judge turns to David robotically. “He’s right, Mr. Madsen,” she says. “Please move ahead with your testimony.”

“Ma’am.” David shrinks into himself and looks like he wants nothing more than to burst into flames, and for once Chloe might actually be a little opposed to that idea. _Come the fuck on, Step-Ass. Get your douche-swagger on._ “I, uh.” He gives one more cough, then settles himself with a glare at the Defendant’s table. “On the night in question, the night of October 10th of last year, I received a tip from my step-daughter–” Chloe’s heart skips a beat– “that something sinister was happening at a location that I had been investigating, involving a man I suspected to be committing malfeasance of some sort. That man being Mark Jefferson, and that location being the basement of an old Prescott barn at the end of Fountainhead Road. The tip I received suggested that I might catch the perp– sorry, the Accused– in the middle of a violent act, so I contacted some colleagues at the Arcadia Bay PD for backup.”

Chloe resists the urge to snort at David considering himself a colleague to the cops.

“Officers Anderson Berry and Thomas Corn met me at the Prescott barn, and upon gaining entry to the basement bunker, we saw a large room resembling a professional photography studio. The perp– sorry, the Accused– was standing at a computer wearing latex gloves, and at the front of the studio was a female Blackwell student strapped to a chair, barely conscious. At that point, Officer Berry apprehended the Accused while Officer Corn and I went to provide assistance to the victim. Officer Corn decided an ambulance was necessary as the victim’s medical state was beyond our means to help, so we stayed behind to wait for the paramedics while Officer Berry drove the Accused to the Arcadia Bay Precinct.”

David trails off and after a moment, Wallace starts to say something – probably to thank him for finally getting his word-vomit out – but he leans into the mic again.

“That victim has a name, Ma’am,” he says, his voice lower, but steady. “Victoria Chase. All of that man’s victims have names. He is everything that is wrong with this country. We owe these girls and their families the justice they deserve. As the Head of Blackwell Security, I sincerely regret that I did not stop him sooner, and that there were this many students who had to suffer before action was finally taken.” He looks in Chloe’s direction and it takes her a second to register that he’s not looking at her, but at Victoria and Kate. Victoria lets out a weird breath while Kate seems to squirm under his gaze.

“Thank you, Mr. Madsen,” Wallace says. “You may return to the Gallery.”

David pushes out of the stand and marches back to his seat, his spine straightened with the confidence of having done the right thing. Chloe isn’t proud of him – she’ll never use that word on him because fuck that guy – but right now, in this very precise sliver of time, she doesn’t fully hate him with every fiber of her being.

Can this day get anymore fucked up?

“Mister District Attorney,” Wallace says. “Does the State have anymore evidence it would like to present?”

“No, Your Honor,” Travers says.

“And does the Defense have an argument against moving this case to trial?”

Another one of Jefferson’s lawyers – a squat, older guy in a pinstripe suit and slicked-back hair – stands up. “We do, Your Honor.”

A murmur flies around the room and from what Chloe understands, this isn’t good news. It means Jefferson isn’t planning to go down easy. Which she’d already gathered if his little gaggle of high-priced lawyers is any indication, but she still doesn’t know what he can possibly be thinking; with all the evidence stacked against him, Jefferson doesn’t have a damn leg to stand on.

But when that lead lawyer or whatever starts speaking, Chloe’s brain skitters to a halt.

Mark Jefferson is innocent, he says. He was framed, he says.

“By David Madsen.”

Chloe’s eyes bug out of her head. What. The actual. Fuck.

There are a few pearl-clutching gasps before the Gallery breaks into bursts of confused babble, and the judge starts smashing her gavel – the way all those cheeseball courtroom movies do whenever someone drops that inevitable ‘bombshell’. ‘The victim robbed himself, Your Honor!’ ‘It was the evil twin all along, Your Honor!’ ‘The _baby_ shot the billionaire, Your Honor!’ But Chloe had no idea dumb twists like that happened in real life.

Because now this weasel lawyer wants to pin the blame on David? A key State witness who was with the cops that night? _Without any evidence?_ How in the hell would he even begin to spin a story like that without talking himself into a pretzel?

When the muttering dies down, Wallace levels the room with a stern glare before handing the floor back to the Defense lawyer. He strides out from behind his table and approaches the judge in a swoop of tailored silk and leather shoes, and even from her seat in the Gallery Chloe thinks she can smell his cologne. It smells like lemon zest and cedar and greed, and it makes her want to gag.

“Your Honor, through our investigation, we have found sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the real guilty party is not our client, but the man who spearheaded our client’s arrest: Mr. David Madsen.” The lawyer hands a slim portfolio folder to Judge Wallace before crossing back to his station, and Wallace opens it to the first sleeve. “What you are looking at are copies of correspondence between Mr. Madsen and Sean Prescott – the father of Nathan Joshua Prescott, the missing boy photographed with Ms. Amber’s corpse. It is believed that Nathan is responsible for Ms. Amber’s accidental death, and though his current whereabouts are unknown, his family knows that he is scared and in desperate need of their help.”

Fucker. Rachel’s death was no accident, and the Nathan-as-victim conspiracy is getting old really fast. Except why would anyone hope he’s alive? Kid was a sick freak who died the death of a sick freak. And _that’s_ how justice is fucking served.

“As you can see on the next page, Nathan has battled with mental illness most of his life. He has two diagnosed comorbid anxiety disorders and is suspected of also suffering from schizoaffective disorder. As such, coupled with his interest in the art of photography, Nathan has a troubled history of being drawn to images of human suffering. Some of Nathan’s photographs can be seen on the third page. They may be… disturbing.

Chloe can only imagine what the judge is looking at. That little asshole really was demented.

“When Nathan came of age and decided to move into the dormitories at his school, Mr. Prescott worried for his son as any responsible father would do – even more so in light of Nathan’s illnesses. As such, Mr. Prescott decided to contact Mr. Madsen, Blackwell’s Head of Security, and ask him to keep a watchful eye on Nathan for extra payment. The correspondence between Mr. Madsen and Mr. Prescott is all documented before you, and they show the actions of a well-intentioned father who placed his trust in the wrong person. If you’ll turn to the next sleeve of documents, Your Honor.”

The judge flips the page.

“Mr. Madsen has long had a preoccupation with surveillance. He made multiple attempts at Blackwell to put up cameras around the campus, though thankfully he was thwarted in each of those attempts. As detailed in his security reports, the students he most eagerly targeted were all unsuspecting females whose privacy would have been severely invaded had he gotten his way.”

Chloe tries to remember the files they found in Wells’s office, the files Max found in David’s stash. And the lawyer is right; David’s paranoia was heavy against the female side.

“After suffering multiple defeats to his surveillance campaigns, we believe that Mr. Madsen discovered a new way to spy on his female targets: his new charge – the young, impressionable Nathan. If Your Honor will turn to the next page, you will see Nathan documented an extensive relationship between himself and Mr. Madsen – and it is deeply alarming. It is our belief, Madam Justice, that Mr. Madsen was using his position with Nathan, a position of trust established not only by his institutional role but also by Nathan’s own father, to lead Nathan into stalking the girls of Mr. Madsen’s choosing – for Mr. Madsen to vicariously live out his own surveillance fetish through Nathan.”

“Your Honor!” Travers practically jumps out of his seat. “This is slander against a cooperative witness, and it is _completely_ unfounded. _Completely!”_

“I apologize. ‘Fetish’ may be a strong word, but it is not unfounded. Your Honor, as you’ll see in the note on the next page, Nathan once wrote the following in his therapy journal: ‘David M. always asks what’s going on inside my head. David M. always helps me follow those he follows’.”

Max breathes a “Holy shit” beside Chloe, and suddenly the room feels a lot colder. Chloe remembers how she felt reading that note on Wells’s computer. She remembers suspecting the worst of David. What’s to stop others, what’s to stop _the judge,_ from doing the same now?

No. No sane human with two brain cells to rub together would ever believe this clusterfuck of a story. Right?

The lawyer takes off his jacket and drapes it over his chairback. It looks like it costs more than Chloe’s entire life. “But Young Nathan, plagued by his illnesses, fell victim to Mr. Madsen’s ministrations. After Nathan developed a taste for stalking Mr. Madsen’s targets, he hungered for more, so he asked his father to build an underground photography studio. Mr. Prescott obliged, but only because he trusted that under Mr. Madsen’s supervision, his son’s hobby would be kept in check, that nothing untoward would take place.” He raises a finger and wriggles it once. “Not so, as we now know.

“Nathan’s mental afflictions meant he had a fascination with human suffering, and when he made a connection to known drug kingpin Francis Bowers–” Chloe almost cackles; Frank a _kingpin?_ “–he started down a dark path. He began purchasing GHB from Mr. Bowers to drug and kidnap girls to take back to his new studio – the same girls whose names you saw on those red binders in DA Travers’s photograph. Yet Mr. Madsen, instead of stopping the boy as only he had the power to do, as he was _tasked and paid_ by Nathan’s father to do, encouraged Nathan in his descent into depravity. He enjoyed setting Nathan after a victim and watching him dose her and photograph her against her will – breaking her spirit so that when Mr. Madsen harassed her on campus afterwards, she would be too fragile to fight back.”

 _“Slander!”_ Travers yells in a spray of spittle and pounds a heavy fist on his table. “Your Honor, this is slander, and it is unfounded!”

“On the contrary, DA Travers,” the lawyer says in a singsong voice. “We have documents of character evidence as well as a sworn affidavit from our client.”

Travers guffaws and Chloe instantly likes him. _“That’s_ your evidence? The word of the Accused?”

Jefferson’s lawyer gives him a metallic smile. “Regardless of your personal feelings about the evidence, Mister District Attorney, you must allow it to be heard in the court of law.”

“Yes, District Attorney Travers,” the judge says – and Travers seethes himself into a dark purple. “Please withhold your sentiments as the Defense presents their argument.” She gives him a look that suggests he should know better, but he only huffs and slams his thick arms across his chest.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” the piece-of-shit lawyer says. “As you can see in the portfolio, the next three pages are a compilation of formal complaints against Mr. Madsen, filed by both Blackwell staff and students. There are very few people around Mr. Madsen – peers and pupils alike – who did not feel violated or downright harassed by his behavior. Michelle Grant, the longest-serving faculty member at the storied institution and a widely beloved educator, was forced to lead a school-wide petition in protest of Mr. Madsen’s aggressive surveillance campaigns. Mr. Madsen is deeply unpopular on the very campus he is charged to serve.

Chloe’s chest tightens. There’s truth to what this asshole is saying, and truth… Truth is not hard to twist.

“And that is how our client, Marcus Jefferson, finds himself defending his freedom today instead of the real culprit, Your Honor. You see, even though Mr. Jefferson felt likewise put off by Mr. Madsen’s intrusive behavior, he was the only person to push past his personal feelings and show Mr. Madsen kindness. When he saw Mr. Madsen being ostracized by his colleagues and disrespected by the students, he felt sorry for the war veteran. He reached out to Mr. Madsen and extended his friendship, and it was that very graciousness which led to his downfall.

“When Nathan’s illnesses got the better of him and he overdosed Ms. Amber during a photoshoot, Mr. Madsen knew things had gotten out of control. He had to cover up his involvement in Nathan’s crimes; the murder of the District Attorney’s daughter would no doubt bring too much heat. But he couldn’t shift the blame entirely onto Nathan, considering Nathan’s father had trusted him to supervise the boy. So he decided to pin it on somebody: the friendly, over-trusting photography expert sitting before you now. He asked Mr. Jefferson to take Nathan under his wing as an aspiring photographer, encouraged a relationship between Mr. Jefferson and Nathan – a tutelage born of their shared passion – and when Mr. Jefferson agreed, Mr. Madsen began distancing himself from Young Mr. Prescott. Mr. Jefferson was now Nathan’s mentor, and should Ms. Amber’s body ever be found and Nathan’s involvement cast to light, it would have been Mr. Jefferson whom everyone would assume had closest knowledge of the boy’s dark obsessions.”

The judge leans back in her seat, her face unreadable, and Chloe wants to scream. She can’t possibly believe any of this, can she? It’s _obviously_ a lie, right? Sure, David can be a shady guy, but that doesn’t mean Jefferson’s story has legs – it _can’t._ “You’ve woven quite the narrative,” Wallace says. “But none of this explains Mr. Jefferson’s presence in the Prescott studio with a live victim on the night of his arrest.”

“Your Honor, on the final page of the files, you will find Mr. Jefferson’s affidavit. In it, he states his version –  the true version – of the events. That on the evening of October 10th, 2013, while most Blackwell students were attending a party in the campus pool house, Mr. Madsen approached Mr. Jefferson. He asked our client to meet him at the Prescott studio after the party, under the pretense that Nathan was having a breakdown over poorly developed film and needed his teacher’s help. Our client believes that Mr. Madsen then kidnapped Victoria Chase, took her to the studio, and waited for Mr. Jefferson to leave Blackwell for the old barn so that he could call his police contacts and spin his tale about the so-called crimes taking place. And he was not waiting – mind you – in the traditional sense. No.” There’s a pregnant pause as he leans his hands against the table. “Rather, Mr. Madsen drove away from the scene and watched Mr. Jefferson’s movements remotely with the tracking system he had planted on our client’s car.”

Chloe’s stomach bottoms out.

“That’s right. When the police searched Mr. Jefferson’s vehicle, they discovered a GPS device affixed to the chassis. It should be in DA Travers’s report; if not, I suspect a dereliction of duty.”

A growl shoots out of Travers’s throat like a punch. Chloe wishes it was one. David and his paranoia toys are the reason they _found_ Rachel – not the reason that Rachel was…

“Mr. Jefferson left Blackwell after the party and, despite being thoroughly exhausted after a full day of teaching and an evening of chaperoning a teenage party, he followed through with his favor to Mr. Madsen and headed to the Prescott barn. But when he walked into the studio and saw Ms. Chase, he immediately knew something was wrong. He first went to check on Ms. Chase, and upon ascertaining that she was alive but appeared drugged, he tried to determine the substance she had been forced to ingest so he could properly inform emergency dispatch when he called 9-1-1. He put on those latex gloves as a precautionary measure so that he would not disturb the crime scene, and that was when Mr. Madsen showed up for his so-called arrest. The arrest of Mark Jefferson: the innocent man whose soul has been so tormented over these false accusations that he suffered from two stress ulcers and had to battle through severe depression just to be here with us.”

Liquid rage surges through Chloe’s veins and throbs behind her eyes. Beside her, Max – poor fucking Max who _really, actually_ had to fight demons just to come here today – chokes back a sob. Chloe pulls her in and tries not to let herself split open at the seams.

But there’s no denying that David had his hands in some pots he had no business knowing about, and that’s when the realization sinks into Chloe like a claw, panic oozing through the gashes. What if the Defense actually pulls this off and David gets arrested? What does that mean for her family? Can they afford the legal fees to get David out? If not… Can her mom handle losing another husband?

And Max. And Rachel. And Kate, Victoria – fuck, _every single girl_ who that psycho dragged into his lair like conquests, food for his limp-dick manhood. What if they don’t get their justice? What if Jefferson…

A dark laugh cracks in her chest. What if the law in this country is nothing more than a high-end prostitute, and anyone with enough money to throw at her can – Chloe snarls – get off?

And just how in the fuck does Jefferson have all this cash, anyway?

“This is why, Your Honor, we implore you to see that the wrong person is being held to account. The real perpetrator, the real kidnapper and murderer, sits here taunting the court with his freedom and his fabricated testimony, when what he needs to do is answer to the law. He needs to face the consequences of his crimes, and he needs to be compelled to help return Nathan to his parents. Because not only do we owe justice to the victims and their families, but for young Nathan, the sick boy who needs our help–” he lands a hand on Jefferson’s shoulder– “time is of the essence.”

* * *

 

When Judge Wallace calls the lawyers to convene in her chamber, Max decides to make a beeline for the exit. Chloe is hot on her heels but stays wordless until they’re down the stairs, through the foyer, and out the door – all the way out of the courthouse where friends and family and enemies can’t see them or hear them.

Max wheels around. “What _was_ that?” she shouts, punching a finger at the courthouse doors. “What the _fuck_ happened back there? _”_

“Fucked if I know.” Chloe’s voice rumbles low like an earthquake.

“He didn’t do it, Chloe. You have to believe me. David didn’t _do any of that!_ It was Jefferson – I know you only have my word to go on but you have to believe me! It wasn’t David!”

“Dude, what the fuck.” Chloe gives her a wide-eyed glare. “Of course it wasn’t David. He was in his shitty motel room that night when _we_ dragged his ass out of bed to bust Jefferson. He wouldn’t even have been in the Dark Room if it hadn’t been for us. I don’t exactly need to be some superpowered time lord just to remember that.”

Oh. Right. Max takes a gulp of air to slow herself down. “Yeah, okay. That’s good. I’m sorry, I… kind of forgot about that part.”

“You’re slipping, woman.”

“God, maybe.” Max sits herself down on the curb and puts her head in her hands. She waits until Chloe takes off Rachel’s shirt and joins her before admitting, “It gets hard to keep track of what I’m supposed to know sometimes.”

“Yeah. Time travel’s a bitch,” Chloe says, and Max hears her fumbling around in her jeans. She doesn’t need to look to know that Chloe is raising a cigarette to her lips. “That fucking story though, huh?” The lighter clicks and the air around them turns bitter.

Max has no idea how to respond to that. She can’t be sure if she’s even wrapped her head around the story yet. David’s the bad guy, the loner rent-a-cop with a history of creeping everyone out; Jefferson’s the scapegoat who – her scalp crawls just thinking about it – has _fallen ill_ from these accusations; and Nathan? They’re saying he’s the one who committed all of the crimes? Max lifts her face from her hands and tries to blink the blur out of her vision. “Chloe?”

“Mm.”

“The judge isn’t going to believe any of that. Right?”

Chloe takes a long exhale, away from Max. “No fucking chance,” she says, but her voice is too strained.

Max takes a second to battle down the urge to cry.

“One thing I can’t figure out, though.”

“What’s that?”

Chloe looks to Max, the cigarette loose between her fingers. “How can Jeffershit afford that kinda legal representation? Is he that rich?”

“No way.” Max hugs her knees to her chest. “He was a minor celebrity back in the 90s but that was it, and I doubt he made very much even then.”

“I knew it.” Chloe’s eyes darken. “There’s something seriously shady there.”

And normally those words would be a call to action, a Bat Signal to solve yet another Max-And-Chloe mystery – Super Max and Dr. Chloenstein on the case. Because they’ve proven that their vigilante justice goes beyond figuring out who stole the cookie from the cookie jar; they were the reason that Rachel was ever found and Jefferson busted. They did something the police couldn’t manage to do. They took charge and _they_ were the ones who got the job done.

But those were different circumstances, and now they’re… powerless in every way. Because really, what are they anymore? Just a couple of girls at the complete and total mercy of a fucked up system, that’s what. And there’s nothing they can possibly do to in this situation except sit and cross their fingers that everything shakes out like it’s supposed to. Now they’re nothing more than just… victims.

The courthouse doors burst open behind them and Max hears people start to pour out. She turns around to see Kate and Victoria in the throng. She’s on her feet before she knows, flagging them down and rushing over to them, Chloe in tow.

“There you guys are!” Kate says when she spots them coming. “We were looking all over for you.”

Max feels her pulse in her throat. “Is it over? What did the judge say?”

“It’s still going to trial,” Victoria answers. “This case was never _not_ going to trial, no matter what puppet show Jefferson’s lawyers decided to put on.”

Max’s heart leaps. “You mean you don’t believe them? You don’t believe it was David?”

Victoria shares a glance with Kate and lets out a tired sigh. “I don’t know what I believe, Max. I just want them to put the right person behind bars so this whole shitshow can be over with.”

“Victoria, it wasn’t David. It was Jefferson.” Victoria averts her eyes, so Max turns to Kate. “You know that, right, Kate?”

“Max… This is just a lot to process right now.”

 _“Kate,”_ Max pleads, like that single word can do anything.

“That’s bullshit.” Chloe steps in front of Kate and Victoria. “Look, there’s nobody on this planet who hates my step-fucker more than me. He’s a prick and an asshole and a chode and a taint. But he would never do anything like what Jeffershit did. Come _on,_ Kate! Chase! You know better, both of you!”

Kate hardens. “Chloe, you don’t know what your step-father did. That week, when I wanted to… when I tried to kill myself–” Victoria looks away– “all David did was harass me. Max, you were there, you saw.”

“Yes, I saw him being a huge jerk to you, because he _can_ be one. But Kate!” Max grabs Kate’s hands and tries, somehow, to reach her friend. “That doesn’t mean he is connected to those crimes!”

“Exactly,” Chloe cuts in. “Like I said, David is a certified Grade-A dildo. But that doesn’t mean he _did this._ Fucking think about it. Their story doesn’t even make sense!”

“How so?” Kate asks.

“Nathan’s last voicemail, on Max’s phone, warning her that _Jefferson_ was coming for her. How do you explain that?”

Kate pauses for a beat before saying, “I’m not sure.” She’s gentle when she slips her hands out of Max’s. “I never knew how to read Nathan. Not like…” She looks to Victoria.

Victoria’s eyes dart to Kate and away again. “Well, Nathan _was_ starting to lose his grip a little those days. He kept seeing things that weren’t there, like Rachel Amber around every corner. He was getting kind of paranoid.”

“Chase, you were that little shit’s best friend. Jefferson fucking murders him and you go and blame it on his mental state?”

Victoria makes to round on Chloe but it’s weak, like she’s too drained to even keep being herself. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. You don’t know what happened to Nathan – nobody does. He’s out there somewhere, and he might still be...”

Kate puts a hand on Victoria’s shoulder as Victoria presses her lips into a thin line, and Max gives Chloe a look to make her hold back her words. Does Victoria forgive Nathan? Does she hope he's alive? Does she _miss_ him? It’s weird how their lives were all torn apart by the same person, yet the healing they seek is so different.

And Kate… What if Kate believes Jefferson? Max knows David now and knows why he did what he did, but even _she_ said it back then: David Madsen bullied Kate up to that rooftop. How can she expect Kate to think any different now?

“Whatever,” Chloe says after a stretch. “Max, we should go find David. Can’t believe I’m saying this, but I need to make sure Jarhead is okay.”

 

* * *

 

David’s not in the crowd streaming out from the courthouse, so they elbow their way back in to look for him. They search all around – through the foyer, up the steps, down the halls, in the courtroom – but no David. Chloe is about to call it quits when Max finally spots him sitting by himself at the end of the bathroom corridor.

What a creepy-ass place to hide out.

“Yo. Sergeant Pepper.”

David lifts his eyes to them, his shoulders hunched and a sigh hanging on his lips. “Chloe?” Jesus, the way he says that, like he wants to lean on her for support – fucking gross. “Chloe. Max.” He gets to his feet and starts lumbering towards them, his words gaining momentum with his steps. “I don’t know what I can say to make you believe me, but I didn’t do it. I’m innocent. I swear I’m innocent.”

“Whoa, slow down, guy,” Chloe says to no effect. David keeps barreling towards them until he’s firmly in their personal space, his mouth still motoring away.

“Those lawyers played some dirty tricks and I know how bad it must look, I know I’ve done some things I maybe shouldn’t have in the past–”

“Yeah, no shit you have,” Chloe says and gets a nudge from Max for her troubles. “Look dude, we believe you. We know you’re innocent.”

David continues to not hear a word. “I’m not who they said I am, I didn’t frame anybody for anything, and I will remind you that _you_ were the ones who told me about that studio in the first p–”

“Hey, genius! I already said we believe you. Will you shut up and fucking listen?”

“Language, Chloe.”

“Ah, there’s the puckered asshole I know.”

David glares. “It wasn’t me,” he mumbles again, and Chloe wants to roll her eyes but the guy is more shaken up than she’s ever seen, and suddenly it occurs to her that she has no idea how to comfort David. She’s never _wanted_ to comfort David before.

“David,” Max cuts in, and thank god for her – her vulnerable charm and her terrycloth voice. She disarms him instantly, the way she does to nearly everyone she talks to even though she has no idea she’s capable of doing it; she only ever tries her best to help. The girl’s a fucking saint. “Listen, Chloe and I believe you, okay? We know you’re innocent.”

“...Do you?”

“Yes. But things are going to get rough for you if this is how Jefferson’s team is going to play it. I actually doubt they thought that judge was going to fall for their story, so I don’t think that Hail Mary was ever their end goal. I don’t think it’s over for you yet.”

There’s a whistling noise when he stands there breathing through his nose. “You think I don’t know that?” he says, but his usual defensiveness is laced with defeat. “I just can’t figure it out. Why me? I’ve never done anything except follow and enforce the word of law, even if I had to take it into my own hands.”

Chloe sighs. “We know that, Columbo. And I have no clue what they’re up to. But until we figure out their game plan, you’re gonna need to keep yourself out of trouble. Think you can do that?”

Those words feel weird coming out of Chloe’s mouth – and being directed at David, no less. But she’s seen how he copes with stress. The last thing they need is for him to dive twelve beers deep and get his macho rage on.

“I’m not worried about myself, Chloe.”

Chloe fights a snort.

“I’m worried about your mother.” He casts his eyes somewhere around his shoes and starts fidgeting with his watch. “I’m… not certain she will take this news well.”

“What, you don’t think she’ll believe you?”

He responds with a fit of broody silence and seems to find a really fascinating spot of nothing on his left shoe to stare at.

Max leans into his field of view. “If you need us to, we’ll vouch for you,” she says, and that hooks his attention.

“Really?” He looks Chloe. “Why? I thought you hated my guts.”

And Chloe doesn’t know what to say. She takes a second and searches herself, and he’s not wrong. She does still hate him, does still think he’s a dickhead who needs to butt out of her life and never come back. But maybe right now – for a limited time only – she’s on his side and wants to make sure he gets through this shit storm? She’s not gonna let him go down for something he didn’t do? How does she voice all of that?

“Because,” she decides to say. “That’s why.”

David’s mustache trembles and he lurches towards her like he wants to hug her – and there’s suddenly so much warmth in his face that she probably wouldn’t recognize him off the street – but she holds out a stiff arm to him.

“This doesn’t make us friends,” she says, and only just manages to bite back, _Or family._

Max steps in between them and gives David a magnetic smile. “It’s okay, David. Everything’s gonna be okay.” She touches a hand to his arm. “We’ll be with you every step of the way.”

David’s mustache does that twitching thing again and he moves in on Max like he’s trying to inflict another hug, but he stops himself in the nick of time and ends up patting Max on the head instead. His voice is hoarse when he says, “Thank you, Max.”

“Of course,” Max says like they’ve reached a new level of understanding, pieced together a bond somehow.

And now Chloe and Max have accomplished what they came back in to do – chill David out, make sure he’s okay, make their solidarity known.

So why does that leave Chloe feeling so damn dirty inside?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. So that's happening.
> 
> Sorry this took so long. It's hard to explain how soundly this chapter kicked my ass (and how patient my betas were to pull me to my feet after every beating).
> 
> Infinite thanks, as always, to rob_lentz and GinFlameRebellion for beta-ing my werdz and keeping me in the ring. Also, consultant credit to u/StormOfCretins for fact-checking my legalese.
> 
> Final note: This isn't going to turn into a legal thriller or anything. The goal was always to write a character/relationship-development fic using the courtroom stuff as a backdrop, so if that's what you came for, hopefully there'll be enough of it still for you to stay!


End file.
